


we're not promised tomorrow

by wekeepeachotherhuman



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Anxiety, Character Study, Dissociation, Mind Control, Mind Control Aftermath & Recovery, Mission Fic, Multi, Nightmares, Panic Attacks, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Torture, i don't wanna over-tag but there's some p heavy themes, so if you even think it might make you a little anxious you don't have to read it!
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-08
Updated: 2016-07-01
Packaged: 2018-05-19 05:11:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 21,349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5954848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wekeepeachotherhuman/pseuds/wekeepeachotherhuman
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Poe's felt like he's been drowning since the Star Destroyer, but he's finally learning how to fight back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. part one.

**Author's Note:**

> So, I took some liberties with the Force tbh. I'm pretending that Snoke's training that he called Ren back to is, like, this new technique that's basically a Force-edition of dream-walking. I can't imagine it's canonically possible, but I'm doing it anyway. 
> 
> Again, like I said in the tags, there's an overall claustrophobic vibe to this fic and it deals primarily with Poe sorting out his trauma post-TFA. a.k.a me sorting through my own shit by proxy.
> 
> Part two will hopefully be posted over the next couple weeks.
> 
> Come hang out on my [tumblr](http://www.brandanoquits.tumblr.com), I swear it's a lot lighter over there!

Poe wakes up to the distinct feeling of there being no air in his lungs. 

He wakes up, a blurry image behind his eyelids, flashing quick enough that he can’t recognize any part of it, but there’s enough latent dread laced in through the marrow of his bones that he doesn’t even really want to know what he’d been dreaming about. 

He sits up, pushes his hair off of his face, then wipes at the sweat on his forehead. He looks out through the darkness. Outside, the sun hasn’t even thought about coming up. He suddenly notices BB-8’s absence, as clear and dire to him now, as if he’d lost a limb. 

Being on the frontlines of the Resistance means being afraid. That sort of thing goes without saying; that sort of thing Poe Dameron can take in stride. He knows that feeling of dread in the pit of his stomach before any mission; knows how he can take that feeling and turn it into something he can use: adrenaline, determination. But waking up afraid, now, that’s something nobody can get used to. It’s strange, how different things are when they’re happening in the middle of the night: it’s dark, you’re alone, confused sometimes. Then, every little sound brings you back to those long nights when you were a kid and convinced that there was a monster underneath your bed. 

Poe’s been fighting a war for most of his life: born from one and will probably die in another. Nightmares aren’t new to him. And they were never anything to be ashamed of within the Resistance. Fighters and pilots, they’d seen and done things that would eventually catch up to them. And when are you more susceptible to being tackled and trapped than lying flat on your back? 

“It’s a natural reaction,” his father had told him once. “It don’t mean anything except that you’re human.” He’d grabbed Poe by the shoulder, looking down at his then-fifteen-year-old son, drenched in sweat, his blankets pooling around his waist and eyes still wide in terror, and said something that Poe would never forget: “And don’t let them take that away from you.”

Kes Dameron died less than a year later and Poe carried those words on with him, making softness and compassion just as much of a Dameron legacy as unmatched bravery and skill. 

His mother had died too; he’d been eight years old then. Before becoming a pilot for the New Republic, most of Poe’s nightmares had been about her. He hated to call them nightmares because anything other than old holos that helped him remember what his mother looked like was something that Poe would never shy away from, but he always woke up from them in a cold sweat. He always felt sick and claustrophobic about the idea that that was the closest he’d ever come to being with her again. 

He stands, strides towards his refresher and thinks, for a split second, that he shouldn’t even turn the lights on because he doesn’t want to see how pale his skin’s become, or how tense his shoulders and jaw are as he holds himself still instead of just allowing himself to shake like a goddamn leaf. It’s juvenile as all hell, he knows that, so he drags his palm across the light sensor by the door and the room goes a soft orange around him. 

He cups his hands underneath the sink and waits for it to run warm water so he can splash it on his face. He gives himself a second to check out his reflection, decides to ignore the tell-tale signs of a disrupted sleep, and instead tells himself that he needs a shave. 

But he doesn’t move. A hand on each side of the porcelain sink, his eyes stuck on his own reflection, he doesn’t reach out for his shaving kit. He just keeps looking, even though his head is telling him, over and over:  _ get your razor, get your razor.  _ Something doesn't feel right. Well, more  _ not right _ than it should after waking up with a start. He feels… He feels a sort of helplessness, or hopelessness… And a clinical smell. Like his refresher’s just been deep-cleaned even though he knows it hasn’t. 

_ Something’s not right, something’s not right, something’s not right… _

He reaches out, towards the mirror, with the distinct feeling that there’s somebody behind it, watching him. He traces his finger along it’s cool surface, as though he’ll be able to tell whether or not it’s been tampered with. And logically, he knows it hasn’t. Logically, he knows that everything is just the way it had been when he’d gone to sleep, but there’s something instinctual--something uncanny--that’s telling him that everything he owns has been taken and replaced by an exact copy. 

His gaze follows his own hand as he takes it down from the mirror. He holds it out in front of him, turning it over, palm-up, and then back over.  _ Something’s not right… _ He clenches his fist, releases it and repeats and has this far-off thought--quiet and tinny--like it’s not even coming from his mind:  _ is this even his body?  _

He feels a numbness in his fingers; a tingling feeling that he assumes will lead to an inevitable, complete and utter nothingness. It feels like whatever he  _ is _ , is some sort of entity, separate from his own face looking back at him in the mirror. And he just wants to say:  _ come back _ , as though he’s not even in control of whatever this is. 

Distantly, he can feel his own heart beating. It’s going too fast. He hears himself taking gulping breaths, and thinks that this isn’t what he’s supposed to be doing. He’s having a panic attack; he knows because he’s had one before. He  _ knows _ what he’s supposed to do, he’s been given pointers, or coping mechanisms, but he feels like, no matter what he knows, he can’t communicate with his body because they’ve grown separate enough that everything he thinks gets lost in translation. 

He grips the sink hard enough that his knuckles start to go white. He watches it happen, saying  _ my  _ knuckles,  _ my _ white skin,  _ my _ hands. He’s dragged back into what he’s always known as his reality by the relentless and unavoidable need to be sick. 

Nothing like hanging over a toilet bowl to bring you right back into harmony with your own body, Poe thinks miserably. 

 

\--

 

He sits on the tiled floor, his back up against the wall, longer than he needs to. He feels exhausted, but keenly aware that he won’t be able to sleep again tonight. He hugs his knees up towards his chest and lays his cheek on his forearm. He focuses on the warmth his own skin gives off. He feels like himself again, but can’t quite place the moment where that happened. In fact, he can’t even really place the moment where he’d started to feel  _ unlike _ himself. That whole… dissociative period?... It seems so distant and absurd that he has to wonder whether it even happened. 

When he finally pulls himself up off the floor, dresses, and leaves his bunk, the base is starting to mull with a few early risers. The mess hall is speckled with soldiers nursing shitty coffee. A few ships out on the tarmac are getting looked at by meticulous pilots. It’s a beautiful morning: clear and still; perfect for flying. And there’s nothing Poe could want more than to be up in the air right now. Flying, that’s something that’s always managed to, ironically enough, keep him grounded. Both his parents had felt the same way too. That’s where the Damerons belonged: with the stars. 

But Poe doesn’t go to his ship, instead he goes to the medbay. He checks on Finn. 

“Designation: Poe Dameron,” a medidroid chirps at him as he steps inside. “Welcome back.”

Poe nods in response, offers a tight-lipped smile. “How’s he doing?” he asks. 

“Well,” the medidroid replies. “Better than expected.”

Poe smiles, feels a sort of pride swell up in his chest. “That’s good.” He steps towards Finn’s bed, looks down at him and sits in the chair still pulled up beside Finn’s pillow. 

He  _ does _ look better. Hell, maybe Poe’s just seeing what he wants to see, but he swears there’s a little more colour to Finn’s face today. His chest seems to rise and fall a little more evenly. Poe leans forward, rests his elbows on his knees, as the medidroid leaves the room, prepared to do its rounds of other patients. 

“Hey, buddy,” Poe says. Finn doesn’t move, not even a twitch in response. “If I was coming around too much, you’d tell me right?” Poe continues. A dry laugh escapes his mouth as he finishes. He hangs his chin down towards his chest and shakes his head. “That was a joke,” he mumbles. “Or something,” he adds, thinking that that was probably in poor taste. He clears his throat and just wants to start over. He takes a deep breath and just talks. (One of the medics had told him once that it helps to talk to the patients, but they probably hadn’t expected him to never shut up.) “I had a dream last night,” he starts. “I don’t remember what it was about,” he says and chuckles wearily. “But that’s what people do. We tell each other about our dreams. I don’t know why. Sometimes they’re funny, I guess.” He shudders. This one hadn’t been funny. “Sometimes our friends are in them,” he continues. Finn hadn’t been in this one, but something tells Poe that he had supposed to be… Yeah. It hits him: not a specific image from the dream or anything, but the distinct feeling that  _ Finn was supposed to be there. _ He’d been waiting for Finn in the dream, but he’d never showed up. 

He hears Finn’s voice in his head; a memory:  _ Ren wants the prisoner… _

Poe sits straighter, suddenly remembers what it had felt like in that chair on Kylo Ren’s ship. Unconsciously he scrapes at his wrists, trying to take that feeling off of his skin. He remembers Ren tearing through him, easy, like it’d been a game. He remembers the magnetism between Ren and the information he’d needed in his head. It had been undeniable and unbreakable. It had been--...

“You’re back!” The strange voice startles Poe out of his own memory. He leans further away from Finn and turns in his chair. A nurse, smiling, carrying a clipboard, approaches the bed. 

“Oh,” Poe stammers. “Yeah, I-... That’s not a problem, is it?”

“No,” she says, waving a hand dismissively. She continues checking a few of Finn’s charts as though Poe’s not there. “You’ll be happy to know he woke up last night.”

Poe slides towards the edge of his seat. “What?”

She looks up then, right at Poe, and smiles. “He was awake. Only briefly. But it’s a start.”

Poe laughs and it surprises even him. She obviously finds his enthusiasm contagious because her smile grows and she nods.

“Did he say anything?” he asks. 

“Not much,” she says. She smiles at Poe’s disappointment, assuring him that it’s the first baby step on a road now well under way. “We’ve been decreasing his medication so it’s likely that he’ll become more coherent over the next couple days.”

“That’s…” And the rest of his sentence hangs because a single word doesn’t seem to articulate how happy and relieved he is. 

“Good,” she finishes for him. “That’s very good.”

Poe smiles, grateful, and nods. She finishes and leaves him still smiling. 

_ Finn was supposed to be there… _ Now, it feels like he would be.  

 

\--

 

Poe doesn’t dream every night, most of them, sure, but not  _ every _ night. He’s managing, is what he’d tell anybody who asked. He’s still getting a solid six hours of sleep. He knows that’s the bare minimum; can’t fight or fly with a turn-around any shorter. But he’s meeting those requirements, regardless of the fact that he’s virtually dead on his feet every morning. He doesn’t dream every night, no, but he wakes up with a nagging at the back of his neck, telling him that  _ something _ had happened the night before: somebody had been watching him. 

The nights that he does dream, the images in his head become clearer. They can still be vague, but when he sits up in bed, he reaches for a pencil and a pad of paper and writes down what he remembers and it all seems to make some sense. That’s something he can do now, at least. Before it’d felt more like broad paint strokes behind his eyes. Ominous, but also completely indecipherable. That’s progress. These images he can compartmentalize, at least. 

He dreams of Kylo Ren. He dreams of that ship and that chair, and a gloved hand reaching out for him. He dreams of shackled wrists and bubbling panic. He dreams about his own battle scars. And that’s normal, Poe tells himself. 

_ It don’t mean anything except you’re human.  _ He sees his father’s face, hears his stern tone:  _ And don’t let them take that away from you. _ And Poe Dameron won’t. He won’t let Kylo Ren win. This will pass. He’ll grow stronger. He can fix this. 

 

\--

 

Poe can remember an old woman who’d lived not far from him back on Yavin IV. Poe had never spoken to her, but there were always rumours about her. She was magical. She could manipulate objects: change pictures into real things. As a child, it’d been fun to believe, but as he grew older, he knew most of the rumours had to be false. Unless, maybe she was strong with the Force, which… Doubtful. In any case, he’d believed. And he’d believed his friend when he’d said that this old woman had taught him how to control his dreams. 

“You can tell yourself that you’re dreaming!”

“While you’re sleeping?” Poe asked. The boy had nodded his head dramatically and Poe had vowed to try it out that night. But he hadn’t dreamt, and then he forgot all about the old woman and her advice about dreams. It became a pebble in a river. 

But now, after all these years, he can feel it. He’s back in Ren’s chair, the Sith standing two feet away from him with his back turned, but he can feel the fact that he’s dreaming. He knows he’s not conscious, but he’s somehow sure of that fact that none of this is real. He remembers his own terror after he’d been captured on Jakku, he remembers his own helplessness, but now, he feels none of that and he thinks:  _ now  _ this _ is progress.  _

“Where is she?” Ren asks, his back still turned. 

“Who?” Poe asks, straightening his posture, feeling confident and secure. 

Ren turns. He’s wearing his mask, but Poe can feel the man’s frustration. He can feel his tension, like he’s working hard for something, but he’s doing nothing: he’s just standing there. Poe feels no pain and no wandering hands through his mind. There’s something else going on, something Poe can’t feel, but it’s clearly beating Kylo Ren down. 

“Where is she?” Ren asks again. His voice sounds the same, like it’s been recorded and repeated, so Poe offers the same response right back: “Who?” he asks, stronger this time.

Ren looks down. Poe follows his eyes and sees that he’s got his hands balled in fists. He’s shaking with effort. Poe narrows his eyes. Whatever this is, it isn’t the Ren that Poe knows. This is a powerful man without his power. There’s this underlying understanding that Poe has about the situation ( _ he’s dreaming, he can do whatever the fuck he wants to _ ) that tells him to just  _ get up _ . He looks down at his own hands: they’re still shackled, but he thinks:  _ get up, get up, get up _ , and the shackles release. 

Ren steps closer immediately. His loss written all over him even though Poe can’t see his eyes. “What are you doing?” he asks, and he sounds like Ben Solo: desperate and petulant. 

“I’m leaving,” Poe tells him, like it’s the easiest thing in the world, and right now, it actually sort of is. He peels himself out of the chair and stands tall. He takes a step forward and misses the moment when Ren does the same, but somehow, immediately, the man is right next to him: quick like a shadow. He reaches out and grabs a hold of Poe’s wrist, squeezing until it feels like bones might break. 

“No,” he says, low and hissing. 

Poe feels him squeeze tighter; the pain crescendoes and then…

Nothing. 

Nothing, but his own dark bunk and his own hurried breaths. In the blackness, he looks down at his wrist, still feeling the phantom grip around it. He rubs at it, willing it away. The realness of it all strikes him, but then he laughs. He laughs, in disbelief at his own victory. He pushes his blankets off of him and swings his legs over the side of his bed. It’s early, he should try to sleep a little more, but he feels too damn  _ good _ to keep himself locked up in his room. He dresses and heads out onto the base, wanting to both hail his victory and keep it for himself. 

He goes to Finn. 

Finn’s been awake a while now. He’s been doing real good. Everybody seems to be pretty impressed with him and Poe can’t blame them. He’s always been more than what people give him credit for. He’d asked for Rey the second that he was strong enough to do so. And berated himself for what happened to Han. Everybody else came first; it didn’t matter that he was down for the count, in bed with a lightsabre incision. 

His spirits had risen a hell of a lot since those early days. Movement’s still a little tough on him, but he likes to be up and at ‘em with the Sun, even just to watch some holovids or play  _ Quest _ with one of the medidroids on break. He takes everything in stride and he doesn’t break. 

As Poe nears Finn’s room, he can hear a bit of a commotion inside. Finn sounds pissed, so he picks up his pace. He pushes through the door to find Finn, his legs thrown over the side of his bed and a droid waiting at the edge, it’s arms out, trying to push Finn back. Finn looks up, his eyes brighten when he sees Poe and he cuts off his tirade at the droid, focusing on Poe instead. 

“Thank Adas,  _ you’re  _ here,” he mutters, spitting the ‘you’re’ at the droid. 

“What’s wrong?” Poe asks, smiling. 

“I’ve been in bed all day--”

“It’s 0700,” Poe points out, knowing full-well Finn won’t listen. 

He doesn’t: “I want to try walking.”

“Designation: Dameron,” the droid starts, pleading to what Poe assumes it thinks will be sanity. “We must limit his physical movements this early in his recovery.”

“I feel fine!” Finn interjects. He rotates his shoulders to prove a point, but what that point is is sorta lost on Poe. It makes him smile either way. 

“I don’t see anything wrong with letting him walk around a bit,” Poe says, rubbing his chin. He goes to say that it must be a good thing that he wants to get up at all, but the droid cuts him off. 

“That’s because you’re not medically trained,” it tells him and Poe has to shrug, has to concede that. He points to the droid, but looks right at Finn. “They make a good point,” he says through a laugh. Finn rolls his eyes and pushes himself further towards the edge of his bed. Instinctually, Poe rushes forward, ready to catch him if he needs to. 

“No, no,” Finn says, holding his hand out to Poe. “Don’t you get started too.” He looks up, half-joking and half-serious, and says: “I trusted you, man.”

“What am I doing?” Poe asks, holding his hands up in surrender. 

“Looking at me like I might break,” Finn answers, not even trying to hide how much that rubs him the wrong way. When Poe says nothing, Finn continues: “Which I won’t, for the record.”

“I know that,” Poe answers. And he wants Finn to believe him more than anything in the world. Poe knows what it feels like to have people wonder if you might fall apart on them. It’s haplessly excruciating and besides that, Poe really means it. He knows Finn won’t break; too many people have already tried that. It won’t work. 

“Then help me up,” Finn says. 

Poe looks to the droid, who’s clearly waiting for Poe to be the voice of reason here, but he can’t be. Not when reason is telling him to help his friend. He shrugs to the droid, indicating that he’s already made his choice and somehow, this machine’s got enough personality to scoff. It throws its hands up and wheels out of the room, chirping something about how humans are it’s least favourite species to work with. Stubborn and illogical. 

 

\--

 

Finn’s a good couple inches taller than Poe is, but after the two weeks or so he’s been in the medbay, he’s lost some weight and it feels like nothing for Poe to hold him up when he has to. 

Physical therapy starts slow. Poe’s been lucky enough to not have needed too much of it, but he knows that much. It’s very, very slow. They have Finn walking between two bars, about waist-height. He holds onto both bars and basically shimmies from one end of the room to the other and then back again. It keeps the muscles moving and loose, apparently. Eventually, he’ll move up to crutches, maybe a cane and then nothing at all. He’s expected to fully recover, which is a blasted miracle in and of itself. But again, it’s just very, very slow. 

Poe can sense Finn’s frustration. He’s felt it before. He remembers his first crash, when he’d been green in the New Republic. He’d torn a quad and had been grounded for months while it healed and he learned to walk again. He’d wanted to be out of bed after forty-eight hours. He’d wanted to be back up in a ship in less than that. And being mentally prepared to do so, but physically useless had been the most testing thing he’d been through in his young life. 

Finn keeps positive though. And Poe feeds off of that. He helps Finn along with every step, allows him to push himself because the exuberant smile he gets whenever he succeeds is worth every second of it. He lets Finn take one hand off of the balancing bars and he holds it with both of his and takes tiny steps, keeping pace with him as they make their way across the room. He’s laughing and Finn is too because this is a  _ good _ thing. This is something to be proud of. 

They make it to the end of the bars and Poe lets Finn turn around himself. 

“Easy, Wonder-Boy,” he says through a smile, his hands still out, ready to catch him if he stumbles. Finn laughs, ignoring him, just eating up every moment of this progress. He takes a step forward and maybe they’ve gotten too comfortable. He should still be using both hands on the bars. Poe shouldn’t have let him do this, not yet. Finn takes a step forward and nearly falls. His reflexes are quicker than Poe’s. He reaches out, grabs a hold of Poe’s wrist as tightly as he can and--...

There’s that clinical smell again. (Poe understands now that it’s how Ren’s Star Destroyer had smelt when he’d been held there.) There’s Ren, holding onto his wrist, hoping to break bone and tear tendons. There’s Ren, pilfering through him like sand, and blackness, and Jakku villagers shouting for  _ somebody _ to do something. And--...

_ “Poe?” _

There’s the frozen, pulsating blaster fire; Poe’s first real exposure to how powerful the Force can be, there’s his own terror making him cold, as bone-white Stormtroopers drag him towards something he’s never seen before…

“Poe?”

And there’s Finn. 

There’s reality. 

Poe can feel how wide-eyed he is when he looks up at Finn. His mouth feels dry and he struggles to swallow down whatever had just threatened to come to the surface. Finn looks scared, guilty, maybe? And Poe just can’t take that. He looks down and sees that Finn’s not the one holding onto him anymore, but the other way around. Poe lets go like Finn’s skin is hot as fire and he leans backwards. 

“I’m sorry,” he mutters, but his throat feels so hoarse that it comes out more like a raspy whisper. 

“Poe, what the hell?” Finn asks. 

Poe shakes his head, tries to laugh, but it comes out as harsh and humourless. He wants to pretend like this never happened, he tries to fix his smile, but knows that Finn’s looking right through it. Finn had been sheltered from a lot of things in the First Order, but Poe can tell that he knows panic when he sees it; seems to know it first-hand.  And Poe suddenly wants to turn this around on him; wants to ask who the hell made him feel this scared before. That question makes Poe feel sick with vengeance. But something about that feels wrong; it feels manipulative and tactless, so he heeds Finn’s concerns. He looks down, keeping his eyes fixed on the tile between his feet and nods, minutely. 

“I guess I haven’t been sleeping too great,” he admits, chuckling meekly, hoping that a smile will hide how vulnerable he feels. He shrugs and says exactly what he feels: “It happens to pilots sometimes. No big deal.”  _ It don’t mean anything except that you’re human. _ He hopes one day, when the conversation isn’t about him, he’ll be able to dole out his father’s advice to Finn.

He looks up and Finn’s watching him closely, looking for a tell of some kind, but compassionate enough not to push. He nods even though Poe can tell that he doesn’t want to. “Okay.”

Poe feels the words bubbling up into his throat before he even realizes he’s thinking it: “Keep it between us,” he hears himself say. It sounds defensive, exactly how someone who  _ needs  _ help would tell people that they really, really don’t. So he laughs again, as if that’ll hide anything and adds, coyly this time: “Right, buddy?”

Poe hears his heartbeat twice, holds his breath while Finn pauses long enough to make him want to turn on his heel and fuckin’ run. But then he says: “Sure,” shakes off his own uncertainty and, “Yeah.”

And Poe doesn’t feel relieved as the conversation uneasily turns elsewhere, like he’d expected to. Rather, he feels an approaching dread, like he’s waiting for the other shoe to drop. 

 

\--

 

He goes about being normal, or at least desperately tries to. And by tries to, it means Poe virtually ignores the dreams he’s having. He ignores the cold sweats and tells himself over and over to just go back to sleep. Get rest, and this’ll all blow over. He buries himself in work, running training exercises with his squadron, attending meetings with the General, plotting and making their next moves in the search for the First Order’s new base. 

General Organa had just finished telling him about a recon mission. Blue squadron is to be sent out to the Core Worlds, over Corellia. There’s been chatter; rumours of barracks silently moving onto the planet, allowing its number to grow patiently. The likelihood of there being anything there is slim to none, but rumours are pretty much all they have to go off of at the moment. So they take each one seriously. Just the last week, Poe had led his squadron over Warhol. There’d been nothing there, of course, but they’d done their part. Now it was Blue Squadron’s turn. 

It’s late by the time Poe gets back to his bunk. He’s been working all day, from one end of the base to another constantly. He’ll get a good night’s sleep. He can feel that in the way his muscles distantly ache and how his eyes keep drooping shut every time he think about his piss-poor excuse for a bed.

He goes to his refresher, switches on the light and stops. 

He looks terrible. He’s been so  _ go go go _ that he never really stopped to give himself a once-over. There are bags under his eyes and he swears he looks older. He’s been sleeping more, sure, but clearly not very soundly. He’s gotten so used to the perma-exhaustion that it just sorta became a part of who he is. Poe Dameron: best pilot in the Resistance, cocky, and always tired. He supposes ignoring things has never really helped him in any way, why should it start now?

Finn had gently told him about these sleeping pills he’d been given early on in the medbay. He said that the doctors wanted him to be sleeping more. It helped with healing, or whatever. 

“Yeah, but I’m not  _ healing _ ,” Poe had pointed out, laughing smugly. And when Finn hadn’t said anything in return, only raised his eyebrows apologetically, Poe quickly changed the subject.

He splashes some water on his face and vows that, starting tomorrow, he’ll take a little better care of himself. He shuts off the light in the refresher, stalks over to his bed and flops down onto it, over the covers and still in his uniform. Closing his eyes, he burrows into his pillow and hopes that, for just one night-- _ one night _ \--he’ll have a dreamless sleep. 

 

\--

 

No such luck.

 

\-- 

 

“You’re looking for me,” Ren says. It’s a statement, not a question. And he’s been in Poe’s head long enough to be absolutely certain. 

Breathing heavily, Poe just wants to joke, wants to taunt, because it’s the only way he knows he can keep some fuckin’ control of the situation. Ren will break that out of him, Poe knows it; he does it nearly every night. “The entire galaxy wants you dead and I’m supposed to be impressed that you know we’re looking for you?” Ren sneers as a response. “Hate to tell you, pal, but  _ everybody’s _ looking for you.”

“Where is the General sending you?” Ren asks. 

Poe laughs, despite himself. He shakes his head, debating between lying and telling Ren he’ll never tell, or just dropping the wall completely, letting him in without a fight because both options lead to the same scenario: Ren will find out. 

“Leia isn’t sending me anywhere,” he says. He uses her name in hopes that it might just do  _ something _ . Everything’s a weapon when your hands are tied. 

Ren holds his hand out in front of him and before Poe even has a second to realize that he isn’t using the Force yet, he flinches. He flinches because he knows what comes next. He freezes, but not because he’s being forced to; everything just stops and all that’s left is a flight response. And then Ren  _ laughs _ . Poe opens his eyes (he hadn’t even realized he’d shut them) and looks up at Ren. Behind his mask, he knows Ren is still smiling. 

“You’re a real bastard, you know that?” Poe mutters, feeling embarrassed and as petulant as he’d been as a child. 

“I don’t need mind powers to have already known you think that,” Ren answers. 

“Yeah, well, I don’t say it enough,” Poe spits back. 

“Because you’re afraid of me,” Ren states, and Poe just feels all of his rage bubble up inside his chest. He just wants to deck the guy and knows full-well that if this was a fair fight, he’d  _ win _ , but it’s a rigged system. He tugs against his shackles, his hands itching to hit anything at this point. 

“Why would I be afraid of some kid?” Poe asks. He leans forward, as far forward as his bonds will let him. Ren doesn’t say anything, but Poe hears a voice inside his head:  _ Careful. _ And Poe thinks, fuck that, there’s so much he’s wanted to say to this punk, why the hell should he stop now? “You’re not a villain, you’re a child having a temper tantrum.” Words are tumbling out of his mouth before he can process them. “A tantrum nobody would care about if you couldn’t Jedi mind trick them into it.” He hears that voice again:  _ I could kill you _ , but doesn’t heed it. “We’ll find your pathetic First Order.” Ren’s anger fills the room around them. “The  _ Resistance _ will not be-...” And there it is. 

There’s the feeling that had made Poe flinch. Ren’s got his hand out. He’s stepped forward so he’s close enough that he could touch Poe’s forehead if he wanted to, but he doesn’t have to. He’s sending unbelievable pain through every part of Poe’s body. His vision goes black, or maybe he just closes his eyes, he can’t fucking tell anymore. And then Ren’s prying through his mind. Prying through memories of Yavin IV and of his mother, just for the hell of it. Prying through memories of old friends: dead pilots and spies. Prying through memories of his father.  _ (It don’t mean anything except that you’re human.) _ The Force tree growing out on their front lawn. Ren holds there a moment longer than he has to: the tree, Poe learning to climb it, the peace it offered their home. And then back to his father.  _ (Don’t let them take that away from you.) _ And Poe doesn’t want to let Ren take anything from him. He wants to make his father proud. He wants to make General Organa proud, but he feels the walls in his head start to break and he knows it’s just a matter of time before they crumble. He doesn’t  _ want _ to let Ren take anything from him, but he just gives up. 

“You’re flying over Corellia,” Ren finally says. It takes a second for Poe to realize that Ren’s no longer in his head, but that doesn’t mean he’s stopped sending waves of... _ whatever it is _ …coursing through his body. So Poe nods, ready to do just about anything to make this whole thing stop. “Tomorrow,” Ren adds. 

And then he’s finished. 

He leaves Poe shackled to the chair. 

 

\--

 

Poe jumps at the sound of a food tray getting set down on the table in front of him. He looks up, finally noticing that he’d been about halfway between putting his cup of coffee down and having another drink for about thirty seconds now. It’s Jess sitting down opposite him. And she doesn’t look happy. 

“You look like shit,” she states. And Poe doesn’t even have it in him to laugh. He just looks back down at his half-eaten breakfast. “What, no snarky remark?” Jess continues. She leans forward, tracking his eyes so they’ll meet. She raises her eyebrows; it’s an expectation for an explanation.

Poe takes a deep breath, tries to keep the edge out of his voice and says: “I’m tired, Jess.”

“Yeah, no shit,” she mumbles. “We’re all tired, Dameron. But not like this.” She gestures at him wildly. That makes him sit up. It’s that edge he’d tried to keep out of his words; an irritation that makes him want to start that fight he hadn’t been able to with Ren. 

“Like what, Pava?” 

He sees her go to fight back, but then she collects herself and Poe wishes that right now, he had that same sort of discipline. “Look,” she starts, and Poe can’t stand to be patronized, not now. He tosses his knife and fork onto his food tray and makes to get up, but Jess reaches out and grabs his arm. He stops. Touch like that will make him do just about anything. “You’re the first fighter who’s ever made it out after being captured by the First Order,” she starts. Her voice is low and stern. Poe looks around to see if anybody might be listening. “I assume it’s Hell, but I don’t know what they do to Resistance prisoners. Nobody does.”

“Finn knows,” Poe interjects. “Why don’t you go ask him?”

“Poe,” Jess says, gentle enough that it feels like she’s talking to a wounded animal. “We’re all trying to help. We just want out Commander back.”

Poe stands. The legs of his chair screech against the linoleum floor. If anybody in the mess hall hadn’t been paying attention to them, they are now.

“I’m right here,” he hisses down at her. 

“Are you?” she counters. 

And Poe doesn’t want to answer that question, doesn’t even fuckin’ know how, and more than anything else, he hates that it’s a question he’s forcing the people around him to ask. That’s not who he is. That’s not who he’d been brought to be up. He was supposed to be brave, compassionate. He was supposed to be a hero, not a liability. 

He swallows down a  _ fuck you _ , knowing that he’s being unreasonable and defensive and stalks out of the mess hall, counting his breaths, keeping them in check. 

 

\--

 

Finn’s slipping into Poe’s old jacket when he steps into the medbay. He’s got his back to the door, so it gives Poe an extra moment to just take it all in. He’s been looking so much better. He’s gaining back some weight, smiling as much as he used to. He looks better than Poe does, honestly. 

He thinks about what he’d said when Finn had suggested he get sleeping pills.  _ Yeah, but I’m not healing. _ If what Finn’s doing is healing, damn right Poe’s not. Poe’s not doing anything; he’s stewing and letting all the shitty things that have happened to him define every one of his actions since the Star Destroyer. 

Poe takes a deep breath, tries to smile and says: “You look like you’re in a hurry.”

Finn turns, startled by his voice, but immediately smiles. “They’re letting me out,” he says. “Damn right I’m in a hurry.”

Poe raises his eyebrows and feels his smile grow more genuine. “They’re kicking you out?” He puts his hands on his hips and laughs, impressed and breathless. “Did you beat the wrong droid at  _ Quest _ ? They don’t like losing.”

Finn rolls his eyes and then shakes his head. “They say I’m good,” he says, serious again. This is an achievement, Poe knows it, and he knows that Finn’s proud of it too. So he lets him have his moment. He approaches him and puts his hand out on Finn’s shoulder. “Well, almost.”

“That’s great, buddy,” Poe says and he wishes he wasn’t so tired, that way he could put a little more feeling into it. Because it  _ is _ great and he  _ is _ proud. 

“They’re putting me in the…” Finn looks down and reads off a small piece of paper in his hand. “Easy Barracks. You know where that is?”

Poe nods. “Yeah.” He’s in the ‘D’ barracks. Not too far from ‘E’, but it doesn’t feel like it’ll be close enough. “I’ll show you.”

All the rooms are the pretty much the same. Finn’s is smaller than Poe’s and he’s sharing it with another new pilot. Poe knows he’ll work his way through the ranks quick enough that he’ll have a single room probably within the year. But Finn doesn’t seem to mind it at all. He’s actually excited by it all, which is a breath of fresh air. You stay in a place too long and you start to get cynical. Poe’s spent most of his time at the base listening to pilots complain about the thin walls, or how hard their mattresses are. It’s human nature to complain, isn’t it? 

But for Finn, this is nothing to complain about. It makes Poe wonder what the living quarters were like in the First Order. The same military-style, he assumes, but there’s something about the base that’s got some character, and Finn identifies that almost immediately. There’s also something to be said that, here, Finn feels like all these things are really  _ his _ . This is  _ his _ space and he can fill it with things that  _ he  _ likes. 

Finn opens up the closet and sees the hangars there. He slips out of Poe’s jacket and hangs it up. He smiles, proud, like he’s finally doing something that feels normal. Poe watches him reach out and run his hands down its sleeve. It seems like such an intimate gesture; Poe feels his cheeks flush and he has to look away. He hears Finn’s boots scuff the floor as he turns back towards his bed. 

“What’s up with you?” Finn asks, candidly and casually. He sits down on his bed, his hands in his lap and he looks up at Poe with so much sincerity that it almost makes Poe want to tell the truth. Poe furrows his brow, minutely lifts his shoulder, as if to say  _ what are you talking about? _ “You look worse than I do,” Finn finally tacks on. 

Poe sighs. Great, first Jessika, now Finn. It’s not exactly what he needs this morning. 

“I’m fine, Finn,” he mumbles. He pinches the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. This isn’t a conversation he wants to have, but not having it will lead to a fight he doesn’t want to have either. 

“Why do you do that?” Finn asks. 

“Do what?” Poe asks, scraping his palm down over his face. 

“Play hero,” Finn states. 

And that makes Poe stop. It unnerves him, hits him right between the eyes. He wants to be a hero; wants to be a presence within the Resistance that people can be proud of, but has he just been playing? It hits him hard, so he laughs instead. 

“What?” he start coyly. “You don’t think I’m a hero?”

“That’s not what I meant,” Finn says, more annoyed than worried he’s offended him. “I’m just saying,” he starts again. “You don’t always have to be The Best Pilot In The Resistance.”

“And what should I be instead?” Poe asks. 

Finn laughs and looks down at his hands. “I’m the ex-Stormtrooper, right? Shouldn’t I be asking that question.”

And he’s right. Poe’s such a fuckin’ mess and somehow, he’s got it in his head that he has it worse than the people around him. He feels sick at his own self-absorption. He crosses his arms over his chest and looks down at his feet. “Probably,” he mumbles. “Sorry.”

Finn waves that off dismissively. “Don’t be that either.”

“What, ‘sorry’?”

“Yes,” Finn answers through a laugh. “Just, whatever’s going on with you, you can tell me.”

“There’s nothing goin’ on, Finn,” Poe answers, trying to keep things shallow and impersonal. 

“So you have panic attacks about nothing?” Finn asks.

And Poe’s brought right back to that day in the physical therapy room. He suddenly remembers what it had felt like to have Ren’s hand around his wrist. It all comes back in such screaming colour that it almost knocks the wind out of him. He counts to three in his head, takes a deep breath, because he can’t  _ have _ a fuckin’ panic attack when he’s about to say: “Who says I have panic attacks?”

“I do,” Finn answers. “You calling me a liar?”

“No, I-...” He’s cut off by a knock on the door. Both he and Finn turns towards it. 

“Come in,” Finn calls out. 

Captain Fushia steps inside. She holds her hands behind her back. She nods to Finn, but then turns her attention to Poe. “Commander. The General has called a meeting. Your presence is requested.”

Poe narrows his eyes. An impromptu meeting with the General is never a good thing. He has so many questions, but he knows his rank doesn’t warrant them. Not to a Captain. The Captain glances from him to Finn and then back: clearly this is confidential. Poe feels something in his chest flare up: a dread, a claustrophobic dread and he suddenly doesn’t want to be anywhere without Finn. So he nods, beginning to count again.  _ Hold it together, Dameron. _

“The General will want Finn there too.”

Clearly, the Captain isn’t very impressed by the change of plans, but she nods minutely and turns on her heel. Poe and Finn are meant to follow. 

Poe keeps with Finn’s speed as they course through the base, which means they’re a few paces behind the Captain. Finn nudges Poe’s arm and raises his eyebrows. He wants to know what the hell he’s about to walk into. And Poe would sure as hell like that too. 

The conference room is nearly empty, which isn’t exactly what Poe had been expecting. General Organa stands near the opposite wall. She turns away from her conversation when he and Finn enter. She approaches them, meeting them halfway.

“Blue Squadron just got back from their mission,” she says, cutting right to the chase. That should be followed with good news, but it just doesn’t feel that way. Poe holds his breath. “Or, what was left of it.”

Poe feels like he’s been suckerpunched. He’s never been great when it comes to losing pilots. It hits him hard, always has. “Ma’am?” he stammers out. 

Leia sighs heavily and shakes her head. “They were ambushed. Somehow the First Order knew where they’d be.”

“What?” Poe manages, but he suddenly remembers Kylo Ren’s voice. _You’re flying over Corellia._ _Tomorrow._ His entire body suddenly feels heavy and he’s not sure he can stand. He feels a sob working its way up his throat. “How? How did he know?” He says ‘he’ without thinking. ‘He’ instead of ‘they’. He sees that give Leia pause, but she continues. 

“I don’t know,” she says. 

“You think there’s a mole?” Finn asks, stepping forward. He sounds angry and hopelessness envelops Poe entirely. There’s no mole, there’s only him. Since he started flying for the Resistance, he’s done nothing but give away its secrets. The Best Pilot In The Resistance. How the fuck did he ever earn that? There are a lot of things Poe Dameron is, but  _ the best _ , at anything, is certainly not one of them. 

He hears Leia say again, that she doesn’t know, but her and Finn’s voices sound faraway. They continue talking. They continue to hold it together and Poe suddenly feels just how under-qualified he is to be here. “I-..” At the sound of his voice, both Finn and Leia turn towards him. He looks up at them and can just imagine the way his face looks: wide-eyed and pale. He’s a child playing hero and it’s written all over him. “I have to go,” he says. He hears that threatening sob make his voice shake. 

“Poe,” Finn says, suddenly concerned when Poe Dameron falling apart shouldn’t be anybody’s concern. 

Poe takes a step backwards, holding his hand out, keeping Finn at bay. When Finn doesn’t step towards him, Poe sees that as his chance. He turns on his heel and goes. And he doesn’t care about the pairs of eyes that follow him. He doesn’t care about anything, he just needs silence, he needs his room, and he needs to disappear. 

He pushes his way into his barracks and finally allows himself to gasp for air. He puts his hand to his chest, as if that’ll do anything. He’s never felt more trapped in his life and that’s really starting to say something. He stumbles in towards the refresher, reaching out for the porcelain sink to get some balance back. He just thinks that if he gets some water in his system, he’ll be alright. 

He lets the water run, lets the sound of it ground him, lets himself think about the sound of rushing water back on Yavin IV and the days that his parents would take him out to the river to throw stones. But nothing’s working. No memory, no matter how pleasant, can drown out the booming voice inside his head:  _ You let those pilots die.  _

All along, he hasn’t been  _ dreaming _ . It’s always been real. It’s always been him and Ren back in that room on the Star Destroyer. It makes him feel silly and duped: angry and embarrassed. 

He looks up at his own reflection and sees a ghost. He’s completely lost himself.  _ Something’s not right. _ He’s breaking, everything around him is breaking. Nothing feels like itself anymore. He’s supposed to be a hero, not a liability. He hates this Poe Dameron, knows everyone else would too if they’d just looked hard enough. There’d been anger and hate in Finn when he suspected a mole. That should have been directed at him. He studies his jawline, his mussed hair, then his eyes:  _ You. His hate is directed at you. _ He’s not even sure if that’s even his voice in his head anymore. It doesn’t matter though, because whoever’s saying it is right. He feels Finn’s hate, completely understands it, and lets that rage envelop him. 

He lifts his fist and hits the mirror, as hard as he fucking can. All this self-hatred, all the pent-up rage from the pathetic fights he’s put up against Kylo Ren comes pouring out. The mirror cracks under it. Shatters, and falls into the sink. There’s a gaping hole where his face should be and that makes him feel a little better. His fingers twitch with the adrenaline; he can feel them shaking even before he looks down at them and-- oh… Blood. But that’s to be expected. 

“Designation: Poe?” Poe recognizes the binary immediately. Never mind the fact that the droid is calling him Poe instead of Dameron. He looks down at BB-8 and suddenly feels ashamed; like his own child has caught him crying. He’s supposed to be stronger than this. He’s supposed to take care of BB-8, not the other way around.

“Hey, buddy,” he says, breathless. He holds his hands behind his back, though he knows the astromech’s already seen the damage. 

BB-8 pauses, seems to look him up and down. “You need medical assistance,” they chirp before bumping up against Poe’s shin. It’s an affectionate gesture, and one Poe hadn’t realized he needed. 

“No,” he says through a grateful laugh. “No, no. I’m fine.”

He tries to flex his hand behind his back, but can’t. There’s barely any feeling in it and he’s broken enough fingers in his lifetime to know what that feels like. Stitches are probably in order too, but he can’t… He can’t go to medbay like this. He’s supposed to be a hero, not a liability. People can’t see that he’s broken. 

_ We just want our Commander back. _ Maybe everybody already knew. 

“Protocol states that if Designation: Poe is injured, I must call for medical assistance,” BB-8 continues. They nudge Poe again, urging him to accept their help. Poe knows, either way, whether he accepts it or not, there’s no way around a droid’s protocol. 

Poe kneels down to BB-8’s level. He sets his good hand on the droid’s head and leans forward, resting his forehead against the cool metal before he starts to nod. “Okay,” he mutters. 

BB-8 spits out more binary, except there aren’t any real words there. Poe closes his eyes and remembers his first crash with the Resistance. He remembers BB-8 chirping this same code to him to keep him calm while they waited for rescue. 

  
  


\--

 

He keeps quiet in the medbay, nods when nurses and droids give him direct instructions, though, they’re mostly quiet too. They’re walking on eggshells, Poe can feel it. There are things they want to say and ask, but they refrain and whenever a nurse catches his eye, they smile at him: tight-lipped and nervous, like they shouldn’t be smiling at all. The droids are even worse. They’re not exactly programmed with social nuances, so they immediately start chirping amicably at him, about things like the weather. Anything but him and why he’s here, really. 

He’s to stay overnight. Nobody asks him if he’d like to, nor do they explain why. Stitches and a few broken bones don’t warrant an overnight stay in the medbay, Poe knows that. Last time he broke a finger, he walked into the medbay, had a medidroid set it and tape it within minutes, and walked back out. There’s more to this story and nobody’s talking about it, which sure, Poe’s actually a little glad for ‘cause no way in hell he wants to talk about it either. 

Everybody thinks he’s losing it. And he probably is. 

They call it exhaustion, dehydration, but nobody states the obvious:  _  your head doesn’t belong to you anymore. _ They don’t know the whole story yet. They don’t know about the dreams. But they know that something isn’t right. 

BB-8’s the only one who makes him still feel normal. Medical staff has allowed them to stay, to charge overnight next to Poe’s bed. Poe assumes it’s because nobody wants to to say no to him, but whatever the reasoning, he’s glad for it. BB-8 chats idly while Poe falls asleep. It feels a little like a recon mission and working has always made Poe feel at ease. 

It doesn’t take long for Ren to enter his head. It’s like he’s waiting. And the painkillers Poe’s been given make him feel woozy even before Ren’s started in on him. One thing he will say about painkillers though, they’ve always made him feel sort of apathetic. They don’t kill pain, so much as they kill the fact that he cares about feeling pain, which right about now, might actually work in his favour. 

“You’re late,” Poe mumbles, resting his head against the back of Ren’s chair. 

“I didn’t realize that we had an appointment,” Ren says back. He steps closer to Poe, his head slightly cocked to the side. He’s never seen the pilot this calm; doesn’t know about the drugs yet, but that’s only a matter of time.  

Poe laughs blearily and shakes his head. “Of course you didn’t.”

Ren steps even closer. He’s like a teacher in front of a non-responsive class: frustrated and demanding more. More what? Fear, respect? Poe can’t bring himself to feel either of those things. 

“You know about your squadron,” Ren says, and that, Poe can make himself care about. He swallows hard and meets Ren’s gaze, letting him know that he’s listening. “About what happened to them over Corellia.” Poe doesn’t say yes, thinks it, and that’s enough for Ren. “I never did thank you for your help on that.”

“Don’t mention it,” Poe says through gritted teeth. His anger’s breaking through the cloud of drugs that had lulled him to sleep. He hears Ren huff out a small laugh, so he tacks on: “No, seriously.  _ Don’t  _ mention it.” And he means it. He never wants to hear about Corellia again. He also wants Ren to know that, even though he might not be all here, mentally, he isn’t going to make this easy for him. 

“Of course,” Ren answers. He turns away from Poe, his hands interlocked behind his back. He looks so kriffin’ casual, it makes Poe want to scream. He hates being here; this powerless and this hopeless. “It’s good to keep moving forward. I’m glad we’re on the same page.”

Poe knows what he’s doing. He’s just trying to rile him up, and he’s falling for it. He sees Han in Kylo Ren for the first time and another surge of anger bowls through him. He balls his hands into fists and feels them start to shake when even that isn’t enough to contain all that rage. 

“We’ve never been on the same page, buddy,” he says, managing to keep his voice as still as he can. 

“Regardless,” Ren continues. He turns now and pauses. Poe’s sure his anger has filled the room around them, but it looks as though Ren’s just finally taking note of it. There’s some amusement there, like some kid watching a bug they’re about to kill squirm. “I know the Resistance has made new plans. General Organa would not let an ambush go unchallenged.”

“Yeah,” Poe says, ‘cause he’s right. There’s still enough Ben Solo in there to remember his mother’s resilience. “But I don’t know ‘em,” he adds. 

Ren stands up a little straighter. Poe can see straight away that he doesn’t believe him.  _ Shit _ , that means no leverage. “You want to play this game?” Ren asks. 

And no way; no way in Hell Poe  _ wants _ to do this, but he doesn’t know how to convince Ren that he’s telling the truth. But then the thought hits him: even if he knew the Resistance’s new plans, he couldn’t give them away. The fact that these were never really dreams puts a whole new edge onto things. These interrogations are real. The information in them isn’t just there because he’d been thinking about it before he fell asleep that night. It’s there because Ren’s power is strong and he’s found a new way to get into people’s heads. This means he needs to be stronger. Starting now, he needs to be better. 

“Go ahead, Ben,” he says. He talks over Kylo’s: “Don’t call me that,” and adds: “You’re not gonna find anything.”

“You sound confident,” Ren tells him. 

Poe shrugs. “This has never been a fair fight. Half the time I didn’t even know it was a fight at all. I was  _ dreaming _ .” He leans forward in the chair. Ren leans forward too. “Now it’s fair. Now I fight back.”

Ren sneers, no,  _ snarls _ , and it’s the furthest thing from human Poe’s ever heard. He rushes forward, wraps his hand around Poe’s throat and squeezes. It’s the first time Ren’s actually been physical with him and it sorta feels like a victory. 

“I will break that fight out of you,” he hisses. Roughly, he lets Poe go and takes a step back.

Heaving, Poe can’t help but laugh. “Then let’s get started,” he taunts. “You got about eight hours. And tomorrow, you’ll have to start all over--”

Before he even gets the last word out, Ren’s holding him still with the Force. He sends pain through him right away, doesn’t work up towards anything, just starts it right off: intense and practically unmanageable. Through pain and desperation, Poe still has the mental capacity to think that this is still a victory, because regardless of whether or not Ren thinks he knows any new Resistance secrets, he’s not looking for them. Instead, he’s just focused on destruction. Poe knows, still strapped to a chair, that the fight still isn’t fair, but it’s starting to feel a little more controlled. 

Poe’s long closed his eyes by the time the pain suddenly stops. He’s woozy enough that he doesn’t really process that there’s noise in the room. There’s somebody else with them. He lifts his head as far as he can and looks out from underneath his eyelashes. And it’s  _ Rey. _ He knows he should be relieved; he’s being saved, but he just feels sick. 

She and Ren are battling. 

He closes his eyes against the noise and tells himself over and over:  _ get up, get up, get up. _

And when he opens his eyes again, he’s back in the medbay. The pain Ren had caused is all gone, but that sick dread is still here. 

Rey is back with Skywalker. And she  _ knows. _

He decides to sit up and wait. He knows she’ll come. 

What he doesn’t expect, is the fact that she brings Finn along with her. 

“What was that?” she demands immediately after she steps into the room. Finn is one step behind her, holding her at the elbow. 

A nurse follows them, slightly out of breath. He looks over Finn’s shoulder at Poe. His apology written all over his face. “I tried to stop them,” he says. Poe shakes his head, goes to say it’s alright, but the nurse has already turned his attention to Rey and Finn. “He needs to rest.”

Rey doesn’t fight him on that, but she looks right at Poe, deploringly. She wants to talk about what she’d walked into: she wants to talk about Ren, but it’s like she suddenly realizes that she’s in the medbay. And Poe thinks about taking the cowardly way out, thinks about asking the nurse to escort them back the way they came. The poor guy would too, but he knows Rey’s not angry, and both she and Finn look so worried that it makes his chest ache. 

He shakes his head and says: “It’s okay.” And then he backtracks when he realizes this is just as much about the other patients around him as it is about him. “If it’s alright, they can stay.”

Both Finn and Rey turn their heads towards the nurse, waiting for answer. And Poe feels bad ‘cause he hasn’t given the guy much of a choice. Saying no to Finn, a hero from Starkiller Base and Rey, the girl who finally brought Luke Skywalker back to the Resistance, isn’t exactly within his paygrade. He sighs, waves them off and just makes sure they keep quiet. 

As soon as the door shuts behind him, Rey steps towards the bed. Poe sits up a little more. BB-8 chirps from down on the floor, a cautious ‘hello’ to Rey after all their time apart, even though he’s just as keen on Poe getting some good rest as the nurse had been. 

“He was in your head,” Rey says, quieter now, but no less intense. 

Poe watches Finn step towards him too, protective already, even though Poe knows he hasn’t heard the full story yet. Poe shrugs haplessly, opens his mouth to speak, but doesn’t know what to say: she hadn’t asked whether or not Ren had been in his head so he couldn’t very well concur or deny it, but he also had nothing to offer as an explanation as to how this is a reality that he now has to deal with. 

“What does that mean?” Finn asks, filling the silence. Rey keeps her eyes fixed on Poe. “How was he in your head? He’s probably halfway across the galaxy.”

Poe wants to give him answer, open his mouth again, but he’s got nothing. He shakes his head, frustrated by just how difficult this all is to articulate. 

“He’s learning new techniques,” Rey says dismally. 

Finn laughs, half-disbelieving and half-incredulous. He looks to Poe and then back to Rey. “New techniques?” he asks. “Are you kiddin’ me? So what, now he doesn’t even have to be in the same room to read your mind?” When Rey doesn’t answer, he adds: “I didn’t think that was how the Force worked.”

“Neither did I,” she answers truthfully. She looks right at Poe and she just looks so sad. Poe knows her expression too: it’s one he’s worn every time a pilot in his squadron has died. It’s an expression that says she should have been here, she should have known. She should have  _ done _ something. 

“He’s learning,” Poe admits. His voice is small enough that both Rey and Finn step closer. He knows they don’t mean it, but he feels so scrutinized; he has to set his down towards his hands. “Sometimes it’d work, sometimes it wouldn’t.”

Finn moves from behind Rey almost instantaneously. He tugs a chair closer to the bed and sits down to Poe’s left. He leans forward, resting his forearm on the mattress. “How long has he been doing this?”

“A couple weeks,” Poe answers and he knows what’s coming next. It hadn’t seemed like telling anybody about this had been an option, but he suddenly feels guilty that he hadn’t. Maybe those pilots would still be alive if he’d just opened his mouth. Before Finn can ask:  _ why didn’t you tell anyone? _ Poe says: “I thought they were just nightmares.” He looks up at Finn then, wishes he’d stop being so damn compassionate, and shrugs. “It happens.”

Finn narrows his eyes, studies him. Poe sees him minutely shake his head. “Why you always doing that?” he asks. 

“Doing what?” Poe asks. 

“Playing hero,” Finn responds, without skipping a beat. 

Poe laughs, his chin drops down towards his chest. When he looks back up, there’s a small smile on Finn’s face. He shrugs, still smiling himself, and says: “It’s easier playing hero than being a liability.”

“You’re not a liability,” Rey says. Poe appreciates the gesture, but he knows he is. He smiles at her meekly, but she’s nodding, resolute and determined. “We can use this,” she continues. 

“How?” Finn asks. 

Poe reads her plan almost immediately. Now that they know that these interrogations are real, they can use that to their advantage. It’s a classic bait-and-switch. They can feed Ren anything they want to. But, Poe’s mind has to be strong enough not to give away their ulterior motives. And there’s probably only one man in the galaxy left who can help make that a reality. 

Rey smiles at him, knows he’s following her every step of the way and says: “I think there’s someone you should meet.”


	2. part two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this took so much longer to get posted than i first made it out to be wow i'm the worst. but thank you so much to everyone who commented and kept me going on this thing. 
> 
> i'm not gonna say when the third part will be put up cos knowing me, who the fuck knows. but i'm also not wanting to give up on this story at all so it will arrive at some point in the future. keeping it vague.

The first time that Poe had met Luke Skywalker, he’d been some snot-nosed kid, too scared to step out from behind his mother’s legs. But he’d grown up with Skywalker’s name all around him, and the omnipresent Force tree out in the front yard, which would never let him forget his family’s connection to the battle that kept their entire planet safe and free. He’d grown up with the stories of the Skywalker siblings, admiring the way Luke had piloted and admiring Leia for just about everything else. 

These were the figures he’d grown up wanting to be compared to, and wanting to make proud. So it felt a little disappointing to have to go up to one, exhausted and defeated, and ask for help. But both Rey and Finn (though he probably looked a hell of a lot more nervous than Poe did) stand by him as they wait out in the hall, in front of Luke’s new barracks. 

Behind him, Finn fidgets. Poe looks over his shoulder at him and whispers: “Will you cut it out?” Finn turns to look at him, eyes wide, like he hadn’t even realized he was doing anything. “You’re making me nervous.”

“Why are you nervous?” Rey asks, leaning forward, around Poe to look at Finn. 

Feeling a little attacked and maybe defensive, Finn straightens his posture. “Oh, I don’t know,” he starts. “Because maybe I’m waiting outside Luke Skywalker’s front door--the guy was sort of a big deal in Stormtrooper class.”

“There’s no such thing as Stormtrooper class,” Poe says, imagining rows of white-armoured troopers, sitting behind the desks he’d had as a kid back on Yavin, scribbling down answers to some spelling exercise. 

“Where do you think I learned to fire a blaster?” Finn hisses back. 

“A range?” Poe answers, shrugging. Their nerves are making them snarky. “Like a normal person.”

“A range,” Finn echoes, and laughs dramatically and emphatically sarcastic, then he turns his attention to Rey. “Is he the funniest guy in the galaxy, or what?”

Rey shrugs, not willing nor interested in taking sides. “I grew up on Jakku. Nobody was funny.”

Finn looks betrayed. His focus remains on Rey a second longer, like he’s trying to process the fact that she didn’t stand up for him. “You’re no help.”

“Maybe I should knock again,” Rey says, lifting her fist.

“No!” That’s both Finn and Poe. They look to each other, surprised that they suddenly agree on something. 

“Just give him a second,” Poe says, after clearing his throat, trying to keep collected. 

“Yeah,” Finn adds. He nods and then looks back at the door. 

Poe does the same, takes a deep breath, and waits for the footsteps on the other side to get closer until the barracks door slides open and there’s Skywalker. He looks… unintimidating. In tan clothing with a robe pulled over. His long hair is freshly brushed and clean. He looks immediately settled. He looks them each over and then he stops on Rey, an affectionate smile on his face. He looks so unbelievably human that Poe can’t understand why he’d ever been too afraid to shake his hand, even as a little kid. He’s younger than Poe expected. You hear Jedi and you think an old man, but of course, he’s no older than his parents would have been right about now. 

Poe suddenly hears his mother’s voice, back on Yavin, after the Battle of Endor.  _ Be polite. _

So he extends his hand. “Mr. Skywalker,” he says. Mister? Is that right? “It’s an honour to meet you.”

Luke turns his attention to him, his smile just as warm. He shakes Poe’s hand, and pats the back of Poe’s palm with the other. His handshake’s gentle, not trying to prove anything. “We’ve met before,” he says. 

Poe nods. “On Yavin IV,” he says. 

Then both he and Skywalker say: “After the Battle of Endor.”

In his periphery vision, Poe sees Rey smile. 

“Your parents meant a lot to the Rebellion,” Luke continues. Poe nods. He’s heard that a thousand times, knows it to be true. “You should be proud.”

“I am, sir,” Poe replies with a small nod. Of course he is, but it’s never made losing them both any easier. Luke smiles to him, this time a little sadly and apologetically, then he turns to Finn. Finn gulps down his nerves. 

“And you, I feel like we’ve already met as well,” he says. Poe looks to Rey, who’s blushing madly. That makes Poe smile. It reminds him of his own father, embarrassing him in front of his friends when he’d been a teenager. 

Finn glances to Rey and then back to Luke. “I hope she hasn’t told you  _ everything _ .” He means the whole ex-Stormtrooper part; he’ll be the last to realize that part of his past doesn’t define him. 

“She told me enough,” Luke says with a knowing nod. He extends his hand first and Finn shakes it, maybe a little too enthusiastically, like he’s overcompensating, like he’s trying to pretend that everything he knows about Luke Skywalker hadn’t been taught to him by people who wanted the man dead. 

Luke steps backward, the invitation for them to come in goes unsaid, but they all do. Rey leads them, feeling the most comfortable with Luke. Finn gives Poe a little nudge as he steps by him too, small and reassuring, even though they all know that they’re tip-toeing around the reason that they’re here. Rey sets out some glasses of water for them at the small table in the corner. They each take a seat around it and Poe can feel Luke’s eyes on him. He knows that Luke had probably been just as privy to the incident in the medbay as Rey had been. He feels his skin flush; he feels so exposed and just wants somebody other than him to bring it up so they can get right to business. 

“So,” Luke says. On either side of him, Poe feels both Rey and Finn glance at him. He knows they want him to offer some sort of explanation as to why they’re here, but his mouth feels wired shut. He swallows hard, wants to be strong enough to just talk about this openly, but instead, he clasps his hands together in his lap and keeps his eyes down. 

Finn reaches out and takes one of his hands. 

Poe remembers the first night that he’d met Rey. They’d been back on the base after Starkiller, but neither of them had really been in the mood for celebration. Finn had been hurt and back then, it hadn’t seemed like there was much chance of him waking up. He remembers Rey telling him about Finn taking her hand whenever he was scared. And he remembers, back on the Star Destroyer when he and Finn had been about to escape, Finn saying  _  stay calm, stay calm _ to himself. He gives Finn’s hand a squeeze, knowing full well that is just as much about himself as it is about Poe. 

“You’re nervous,” Luke says and Poe knows he’s talking to him. Cautiously, he looks up, but Luke doesn’t look accusatory or impatient. He just looks like he wants to help. “Don’t be,” he adds. 

“I’m sorry,” Poe says, quiet and embarrassed. 

“Don’t be that either,” Finn murmurs and Poe feels his chest tighten right up. It’s almost like he doesn’t know what to do with all this support. He feels like, with everybody around him trying so hard, this should all be easy, but it isn’t. It isn’t easy, even though everyone is trying their hardest to make it so, and it makes him wonder if maybe, he’s the one that isn’t trying hard enough. 

“Ren’s learning new techniques with the Force,” Rey says, softly, like she doesn’t want to overstep her bounds. But Poe feels relieved; he lets air out of his lungs that he hadn’t even realized he’d been keeping there. “He’s learning to enter people’s dreams.” Luke looks from Poe to Rey. “That disturbance in the Force you’d talked about,” she continues. “I think this might be it.”

“A human’s defenses are lowest while they’re sleeping,” Luke says, like he’s trying to work through the logistics of everything. 

“Still,” Rey says. She looks to Poe and smiles, tight-lipped but reassuring. “It would take a lot of power.”

Luke nods and then returns his attention to Poe. “Your dreams,” he says. It’s a statement, not a question, but Poe still feels himself nodding. “He knows how important you are to my sister.” Poe feels Finn squeeze his hand again, knows that Luke Skywalker saying that should make him feel prideful, but it doesn’t; it doesn’t because it doesn’t erase the fact that it’s happening not just because he’s ranked highly enough to know some Resistance secrets, but also because he’s the  _ weak link _ . 

“I thought we could use this to our advantage,” Rey says. 

“Bait and switch,” Finn adds. 

They’re getting ahead of themselves so Poe says: “ _ If _ I can get him to take the bait.” That’s still a big ‘if’, and one he’s not so sure he’s capable of. 

“You will,” Rey assures him. Poe wants to be as convinced as both she and Finn are, but he just isn’t. He knows how strong Ren is with the Force. He knows how much his own mind pales in comparison. He looks to Rey, deploringly, hoping that some of her optimism might rub off on him. She nods when he doesn’t say anything, then she gestures towards Luke with her chin. “We can teach you.”

“I’m not Force-sensitive,” Poe says and he’s not really sure why he’s choosing now to put up some sort of argument. He probably should have voiced these concerns before they got far enough in their little plan that they were now sitting in front of Luke Skywalker. And he half-expects Rey to say something like:  _ you don’t know that _ , that’s how hopeful she looks. 

“You grew up with that tree on Yavin,” Luke says. “Your body probably knows the Force better than you’re even aware of.” And that shuts them all up pretty quick. Poe turns his head from Rey to Luke and sets his jaw to make sure it’s not down on the floor, which is where it most wants to be, because that’s about as close to  _ you don’t know that _ as they could possibly get. And coming from Luke Skywalker, no less. Undoubtedly, Luke can sense the awe in the soldiers in front of him, so he keeps explaining: “That’s not to say you can use the Force, but it’s an energy--and one you’ve been exposed to your entire life.”

“Okay,” Poe starts slowly, still not fully processing what Luke’s said. “So what can I do?”

Luke smiles, small and a little apologetic; whatever it is, it won’t come easy.

 

\--

 

They start with meditation. Poe spends most of the exercise feeling restless and peeking across the table at Luke, who doesn’t even seem to be moving. Poe’s never really been too good at the whole ‘clear-your-mind’ thing. He’s easy-going, sure, people’ve even called him carefree, but whenever things get a little too quiet or a little too slow, he gets antsy. 

He wants to be doing more. He wants to learn how to fight against Ren right away. He’d hoped Luke would be on the same page, but this feels just like physical therapy: too slow and too frustrating. He consistently bites his tongue, keeping himself from petulantly asking if this was  _ all _ that they’d be doing. 

When Luke tells him that they’ve done enough for the day, Poe feels like they haven’t gotten anywhere. He sure as hell doesn’t feel any more well-equipped to deal with Ren’s dreamwalking, but he keeps his disappointment to himself and shakes Luke’s hand, thanks him for his help, and returns to his room, where both Finn and Rey have sorta set up camp. 

Rey and Finn are sitting cross-legged across from one another on the bed, chatting, but they shut up right when he walks in, looking over at him. Finn looks like he’s about to say something, but doesn’t; doesn’t want to barrage Poe the second he gets home, but Rey doesn’t show the same restraint. She hops off the bed and steps towards him. 

“How was it?” she asks. 

Poe laughs ruefully. He doesn’t really know how to answer that. He doesn’t want to disappoint her and say that he isn’t sure how useful it was, but he also doesn’t want to lie. He takes a deep breath, considers his options and then says: “Slow.”

Rey nods, immediately sensing his apprehension. That’s when Finn stands, guessing that things might start to fall apart if he doesn’t say something quick. “That makes sense, though.” He looks to Rey for reassurance. “Right?”

Rey nods again. She steps closer to Poe, looks like she wants to reach out and touch him, but she doesn’t. “Things won’t just change overnight,” she tells him. 

Poe laughs again, not able to keep his bitterness out of it this time. “That’s sorta what I needed.”

Rey frowns, her brows knit together and her lips in a tight line. Poe hates to see her that way, but it’s true. Obviously, overnight success isn’t a very healthy expectation, but he’d needed  _ something _ . He’d needed something that he can use  _ tonight _ . Ren will be back. Tonight. And he’ll still be able to do whatever he wants. And Poe can’t have that, not after what he’s already cost the Rebellion. He’s afraid. He hates to admit it, but he’s afraid to sleep, afraid of what will inevitably meet him there. 

“Sorry,” he mutters when neither Finn nor Rey say anything back. His negativity’s clearly rubbed off on them. He drags his palm down over his eyes and wishes he could put a little more sincerity into that apology but he’s just too tired. “I’m gonna get in the shower.”

He steps away from them, before they can argue with him. He turns the shower on, reaches out to let the rivulets cascade over his hand as the water warms up. He steps inside and just lets the water course through his hair. It doesn’t particularly need to be washed, but he’d already been starting to feel a little claustrophobic out in the bedroom. He catches himself regretting having both Finn and Rey stay with him, but he knows he damn well needs them. He needs people around, if only to use them for the conversation that will keep him up all night. He doesn’t know when he decided that he’d been staying up all night, but right now, it seems to be the only option. 

He hates how much he needs the instant-gratification. He knows he wouldn’t expect so much of anybody else. He’s allowing his own ambition to eat him alive. He already feels exhausted; mentally and physically, so he flips the water toggle and winces as it goes cold. Goosebumps pop up all over his skin almost immediately and after he lowers his head right underneath the fixture, he feels himself get a little more alert. 

Shaking, he turns the water off, steps out of the shower and wraps a towel around his shoulders, hugging it as tightly against himself as he can. There’s a chill, right down to his bones and he hopes that the cold shower will actually be worth something in the end. 

When he steps out of the refresher, Rey and Finn are back up on the bed, and Poe gets the distinct feeling that they’d been talking about him while he’d been gone. And he wonders if this is how he’ll feel every time he steps into a room for the rest of his life. 

 

\--

 

The three of them stay up late, talking through the night, but eventually, they’re all dead on their feet, but Finn and Rey don’t really have the same stakes, so they let their eyes fall shut, they let themselves climb under the blankets, but Poe doesn’t. He stays awake, alone. 

He moves over to the chair by the window and just looks out. There’s not really much else that he can do. Not while his friends are sleeping. He thinks about Ren. He wonders what the man must think is going on. Poe assumes that Ren is waiting for the moment that he feels Poe let his guard down. Poe takes a little comfort in the fact that the impatient Sith is probably losing his damn mind. The Solo kid has never been too good at the waiting part, at least from what he’s heard. 

He’s halfway through a one-player game on his holoprojector when he hears Finn start to stir in the bed. Poe turns off his device and holds his breath, hoping he’ll just roll over and go back to sleep, but no luck. He sees Finn, sihlouetted in the dark room, sit up in bed and rub at his eyes with the butt of his palm. He squints, adjusting to the light coming in through the window and then focuses on Poe. 

“You okay?” he asks. 

Poe nods and smiles weakly. “Couldn’t sleep.”

Poe feels his shoulders drop when Finn starts to get up. He shuffles closer to the window and leans down on the windowsill. He watches over Poe carefully. He’s worried, Poe knows it, so he tells him: “Nothing happened, Finn. I’m fine.”

That seems to make Finn relax a little, but he’s still got a few questions. “You’ve been up this whole time?”

Poe shrugs. It sounds a little crazy when it’s said out loud, so Poe doesn’t exactly what to say that, yeah, he has been. He fidgets with the device in his hands and keeps his eyes away from Finn. 

“You’re gonna have to sleep eventually,” he hears Finn say. 

Poe takes a deep breath and says: “I know,” because obviously, his plan hadn’t been to never sleep again, he’d just wanted to put it off for as long as he could. “But I’m living in the now,” he adds. “People say that’s healthy.” He smiles, but Finn doesn’t smile back. Knowing he can’t joke his way out of this one, Poe bites the bullet. He decides to talk, which is clearly what Finn wants. He takes a deep breath and says: “I can’t control what happens when I fall asleep.” He looks up at Finn. He looks a little unreadable. So Poe shrugs and continues: “I just wanted a night to myself.”

Finn swallows hard. He crosses his arms over his chest and starts to nod. “I get that.”

And Poe feels his chest tighten up. He sees the way that Finn’s just letting him talk. He’s not trying to use this conversation as a way to give Poe advice or as some sort of proof that Finn’s been through something similar (even though Poe’s sure he has); he’s just letting Poe work through his own shit, at his own pace, and Poe suddenly wonders what the hell he could have done to deserve Finn and Rey, both. And where he hadn’t wanted to open up about anything, he suddenly can’t seem to stop himself from doing so.

He hears his father say again:  _ It don’t mean anything except that you’re human. _

“And honestly,” he says, through a wry laugh. “I’m scared.” He sees Finn’s expression soften up. He shrugs, hoping that’ll make him look a little less vulnerable. “Of… of  _ him _ , of what I might tell him.” He takes a deep breath. “I don’t want anybody else to die because of me.”

“Nobody’s gonna die,” Finn assures him. “We’ve got a jump now.” Poe nods. People have been telling him that for days. “So we can lay low, change plans whenever we need to.”

“I know,” Poe hears himself say again. 

“And hey,” Finn says. He reaches out, touches Poe’s arm to get his full attention. “It’s okay to be scared.” Poe smiles up at him, weakly but graciously. Finn smiles back and shrugs. “I’m scared all the time.” Finn smiles, amused and self-deprecating. “I’m scared right now.”

Poe finds himself laughing, despite himself and Finn laughing along with him is what he’s needed all day. Finn’s looking down at him, and his concern is so god damn sincere that it almost makes Poe feel safe enough to climb back under the blankets with he and Rey. “Thanks,” he mutters and means it more than he’d ever be able to articulate. 

“You should get some sleep,” Finn says. 

Poe nods again. “I will.”

Finn smiles. He starts to lift himself from the windowsill, using Poe’s shoulder as leverage, but he’s also using the touch to keep Poe calm. Finn climbs back into bed, confident that Poe will eventually follow him. 

Poe takes a few extra minutes, looking out through the window. Things feel quiet. Rey walking in on his dream in the medbay had meant a lot for him, but Poe’s sure that it meant a lot to Ren too. It gives them a leg-up, but it also lets Ren assume that since Rey knows what he’s been doing, that Skywalker probably knows as well. Poe will work hard, but Ren will be able to anticipate that. He’ll come back with something too. While Poe levels up, Ren will do the same. And the consequence of that scares the hell out of him. 

He looks back out through his window. D’Qar is quiet. 

It’s not a relieving quiet; it’s a quiet before a storm. 

 

\--

 

He wakes up the following morning alone. He’d gotten so used to the weight of extra bodies in his bed that their absence feels so keen. He sits up, turning at his waist and he squints through the room. He doesn’t hear either Rey or Finn in the refresher. He feels his hair flop down over his forehead. He knows it must be a mess. 

“Rey?” he calls out; still tired enough to think that she might hear him wherever she is. 

He turns further, checks the clock and sees that it’s past lunch time and that sets him in gear quick. He pushes his blankets down towards his feet and scrambles across his mattress until he can swing his feet down onto the floor. Muttering every curse word he knows over and over, he finds some semblance of a uniform from the clothes thrown about on his floor. For all he knows, some of them might belong to Finn. 

He rushes through the door to his barracks, nearly bumping into a new pilot making his way down the hallway. Keeping his apology short, he keeps on, running his hand through his hair, trying to tame it, even though he knows there’s no chance of that happening. 

First, he goes to the mess hall, but no luck. Then he goes to the training room. They’re both there. Rey’s lying on her back doing sit-ups and Finn is holding her feet down against the floor for leverage. They both turn at the sound of the gym door opening and quickly stand when they realize it’s Poe. Poe throws his hands up in the air exasperately. 

“What?” Rey asks, still breathing heavily. 

“What?” Poe parrots back to her. Rey and Finn exchange a look. Poe sees Finn minutely shrug; a gesture small and intimate enough that it’s meant only for Rey, but Poe knows them well enough to catch it. “You didn’t wake me up,” he finally explains. “We were supposed to see Skywalker.”

“We can go now,” Finn says, nonchalantly.

Poe gapes, can’t grasp the fact that neither of them are taking this as seriously as he is. “He’s not really the kind of guy you miss appointments with.”

“I don’t think he’d mind,” Rey says. “He knows you’ve been tired.”

“Yeah, but,” Poe mutters. He hates how insolent he sounds, so he bites his tongue. He puts his hands on his hips and drops his chin down towards his chest. “I haven’t slept through lunch since I was a kid.”

“Clearly you needed it,” Finn states, not really giving Poe’s whining the time of day. 

“That’s not the point,” Poe mumbles, though he’s not really sure what the point is, exactly. 

“You slept through the night, didn’t you?” Rey asks, stepping towards him. Poe looks up at her, the realization dawning on him that, yeah, he actually did. “How long has it been since that’s happened?” And Poe doesn’t know the answer to that question. Time sorta loses all meaning when you’re exhausted. A couple weeks, at least?

“I…” he stammers. 

So Finn answers for him: “Months.” Poe looks to him and immediately understands why he hadn’t had any time for Poe’s complaints. He’s worried, and has been for a long time. He’s been on edge for just about as long as Poe has. This hasn’t been easy on him either. It hasn’t been easy on anybody around Poe. He thinks of Jessika; concerned and stern, telling him that she needed her leader back, and  _ shit… _ an apology is probably in order. 

“He’ll see you tonight,” Rey urges, and she means Luke. Poe just nods, teaching himself to take in people’s concerns; they aren’t fighting him, they’re still on his side. 

 

\--

 

Poe drops a tin of medbay gelatine down on the table in front of him. Jessika, her spoon halfway to her mouth, looks down at it then up at Poe. She looks suspicious. She puts her spoon down and reaches out for it, examining it, like it might be the lead-in to some prank. 

“What’s this?” she asks. 

“Your favourite?” Poe tries. She narrows her eyes at him, trying to discern what angle he’s coming from. He sighs and decides to just go with the truth: “It’s a white flag, alright.”

At that, Jess starts to smile. She leans back in her seat and crosses her arms over her chest and Poe’s pretty sure she’s gonna make him grovel. “A white flag,” she echoes back. Poe sits down in the seat opposite her, his hands out on the table in front of him. He fidgets; emotional interaction, as much as Poe lives for it, can still be tough. “What for?”

Poe sighs: “You were worried about me and it blew up in your face.”

“Hmm,” she says through a smile. “I wonder why that happened.”

Poe laughs and shakes his head. “Because I’m an idiot. Is that the right answer?”

Jess laughs too and Poe notices that she’s fully relaxed now. “Close enough,” she mutters, then she opens up the tin of gelatine: a metaphorical acceptance of his apology. “You’re good now though, right?” she says around a mouthful of food. 

Poe pauses, wants to say that, yeah he is, but isn’t sure if that’s a lie or not. Right now, he feels fine. He feels rested and looked after by all of his friends. She looks up at him when he doesn’t respond right away, looking at least a little more tense now, so Poe just nods. He doesn’t want to worry her any more than he already has. 

“Yeah,” he mutters. “Yeah, of course.”

Jess considers that and Poe holds his breath. Something in her face tells him that she doesn’t fully believe him, but she doesn’t want to press about anything too personal. At least not here, in the mess hall. So she nods too. “Good,” she says. “You look better.”

Poe smiles, genuinely pleased with that. “Thanks.”

He starts to eat the food in front of him, enjoying the pleasant silence between him and Jess, before he notices a change in that quiet. He looks up from his plate and sees that she’s keenly focused on something across the room. Beyond her, everybody else seems focused on the same thing. He twists in his seat, eyes scanning for whatever’s caught everybody’s attention. And-- _ oh shit _ \--, there it is. 

Luke Skywalker. Leia too.

He turns back in his seat; his first instinct being to keep his head down, but also knowing he’s an adult now and can’t exactly run from things that could potentially make him uncomfortable. He looks down at the uniform he’d pulled off his bedroom floor, noting every crease for the first time. He pats it down, knows it won’t do anything, and then stands. 

“Poe,” Jess hisses, not knowing how much time he’s really spent with the Skywalker siblings and thinking her hotshot squadron leader might be overstepping his bounds. 

When Leia spots him (it isn’t hard; he’s about the only person in the mess hall not frozen in awe), she smiles minutely and approaches him, Luke following her. 

“General,” Poe says. 

He hears Jess spit out his name again, quieter this time, now that the Skywalkers are closer. She feels out of her league, Poe knows, and probably not in best form to meet Luke Skywalker: casual dress and a mouthful of gelatin. 

“Commander,” Leia says and then she smiles properly this time around. Leia having a soft spot for Poe Dameron isn’t really news on the base. She relaxes around him in a way she doesn’t with other commanders. “My brother tells me you’ve been training with him.” She keeps the why private. Still seated at the table, Jess chokes on whatever’s she’s eating and, sputtering, tries to cover it up with a cough.  _ Training with Luke Skywalker? _ That’s not exactly something anybody can say. Poe looks down at her and bites his tongue when he realizes he wants to tell her that it’s not as cool as it sounds, because then he’d have to explain why, and nightmares and Kylo Ren aren’t really table-talk. 

“Yes, I,” Poe starts. He laughs meekly, squirming with discomfort. “I’m afraid I missed our last session though.” He says that to Luke, by ways of an apology. 

Luke shakes his head, a small smile on his face. “I spoke to Rey.” Poe wonders how much  _ talking _ actually got done. Probably none. 

“I think it’s a good idea,” Leia says. “You two working together.”

Poe nods, and then realizes how damn cryptic this conversation must sound to somebody who’s not a part of any of it. He clears his throat, looks down at Jess, and-- her eyes are wide and she shakes her head at him. She can see the introduction on the tip of his tongue and doesn’t want it. But it’s out before he can even reel it back in:

“Oh,” he says, extending his hands towards Jess. “Mr. Skywalker, this is Jessika Pava. She’s a pilot in the Black Squadron.”

Apprehensively kicked into gear, Jess stands, smoothing out her uniform, even though it’s already spotless. She extends her hand to Luke. “It’s an honour,” she says. Luke shakes her hand, clasping it with both of his. He smiles at her before letting her hand go. 

“Did my sister tell you to say that?” he jokes.

Leia rolls her eyes and starts to turn on her heel. “Are you going to say that every time you’re introduced to someone?”

Luke smiles after her, trailing her. “Come on, it’s funny,” he tells her. 

She waves her hand at him dismissively and they continue on their way.

Poe exhales. There, that hadn’t been as hard as he’d been expecting it to be. 

Then, Jess swats him on the arm. 

“What was that for?” he asks. 

“Did you not get the look I was giving you, or did you just ignore it?” 

She looks so damn serious, and Poe can picture her--wide-eyed, shaking her head at him--so vividly that it makes him laugh. She hits him again. “I’m sorry!” he defends through a blatant smile. “I panicked!” Jess rolls her eyes and turns to go, but Poe follows her. “You did great though.”

That makes her stop. She turns just to give Poe a real glare and then she’s right back around, heading for the door. “I hate you so much.”

“You don’t though!” Poe calls after her. He can feel a few people watching him. He turns towards the closest table; a pilot in Red Squadron. “She doesn’t,” he tells them, as though it makes any difference to their lives. 

 

\--

 

“You look rested.” That’s the first thing Skywalker says to him when he walks into his barrack that night. Rey had convinced him to move the morning session he’d missed to that evening.  

Poe nods, smiling awkwardly. He steps further inside, his hands held behind his back. Luke follows him, looking like he hasn’t even gotten changed out of his sleep-clothes. His socked-feet are nearly silent as he makes his way towards the table they always set up camp at. 

“I should,” Poe says as he lowers himself into a chair. “I slept for twelve hours.”

Opposite him, Luke smiles, genuinely pleased with that fact, just the way Rey knew he would be. He folds his hands together out on the table in front of him. “That’s a good thing. You needed it.”

“Yeah,” Poe says through a laugh. “That’s what everybody keeps telling me.” He shrugs, suddenly feeling chatty. “My mother would have had my skin. I guess you never really get over the rules you had when you were a kid.”

Luke’s smile grows at that. There’s a fondness and warmth there, a nostalgia left over from Tatooine. He nods; his agreement written all through his expression. “No, you don’t,” he mutters. 

Luke Skywalker’s been a legend since before Poe can even remember. There’s so much grandeur that comes along with the Skywalker name that it can sometimes be hard to remember that he’s just as human as the next guy. Working with him, Poe tries to remember that often. He tries to forget the myth and just focus on the humanness in front of him. 

“It’s not too late to start some training, is it?” Poe asks; half-serious and half-just wanting to break the silence that fell between them. 

“No,” Luke tells him. “If you want to train, we can train.”

Poe smiles, finally feels himself relax, and nods. “Great, I…” He means to say he wants to  _ actually _ learn something, but it feels disrespectful, so he bites his tongue and hopes that he doesn’t think too loudly. He backtracks, looking for a better way to say this. “I didn’t have any dreams last night.” Luke nods, urging him to continue. “I just think that that’s a good thing and I want to stay one step ahead of him.” He hates to use Kylo Ren’s name--avoids it. 

Luke takes a deep breath and Poe knows that he’s moving too fast. He immediately wants to take everything back. He opens his mouth to talk again, but Luke cuts him off, and his voice is quiet, but always so commanding. “It’s a long process,” he says. 

Poe nods. “I understand that, sir.”

“Luke.”

“What?”

“You don’t have to call me ‘sir’.”

“Oh.” Poe feels his cheeks start to go hot. 

“It’s just Luke.”

“Right,” Poe says, looking down at his hands. “Of course.” The room’s quiet a second and when Poe looks up, Luke’s still looking straight at him, studying him. Intense is probably the most common word that anyone who’s met Luke Skywalker would use to describe him, but it still surprises Poe sometimes, despite all the time they’ve been spending together. “What?” Poe asks. 

“Just something my sister said about you,” Luke says. 

Poe sits up a little straighter, shuffles forward in his seat. “What did she say?”

“That she could count on you to survive anything,” Luke says. Poe knows there’s a ‘but’ in there somewhere, but he feels his pride swell anyway. “Except when you got too ambitious.” And there it is. 

Poe feels his stomach tighten up as he gets more defensive. He furrows his brow and asks: “So ambition is a bad thing?”

“It can be,” Luke says, shrugging. “If your ambition puts you in dangerous places that you don’t need to be in.”

Poe looks down at his hands, fidgeting in his lap, and he feels all that bitterness and antsiness rise back up in him. He hates to feel helpless, and more than anything, he hates not doing anything about it. “With all due respect,  _ sir _ ,” he starts. In his periphery vision, he sees Luke stiffen and then lean forward. Something tells Poe that he shouldn’t mistake Skywalker’s gentleness for weakness. He pauses, takes a deep breath and tries to rid himself of all the petulance he’d prepared to put into his words. He looks up and Luke is stoic. “I’m not doing this because I  _ want _ to. You think I’m moving too fast, and maybe I am, I don’t know, but I need to be ambitious about this. I need  _ real _ changes because if things don’t change, I’m going to get a lot of people killed.”

A quiet envelops them and Poe can’t get a read on Luke. He doesn’t know how the man’s taken this outburst, doesn’t know where this will get them. All he knows is that he’d needed to say it. 

“My sister told me about Blue Squadron.” Poe opens his mouth, means to say that he doesn’t want to talk about that, but nothing comes out. He feels his throat tighten up and knows there’s no way he’s going to be able to talk through it, so he shuts his mouth and finds a spot across the room that he can keep focused on for the time being. “It wasn’t your fault.” Poe hears himself scoff. “Nobody thinks it was your fault.”

“Okay,” Poe blurts out. He clenches his jaw and closes his eyes. When his opens them back up, his vision’s gone a little blurry. He shakes his head, wants this emotion to just go away. “It wasn’t my fault.”

“It wasn’t,” Luke says again. 

“That’s what I said!” Poe says, urgently, hoping this is just as uncomfortable for Luke as it is for him and that he’ll just change the damn subject. Luke doesn’t respond and Poe can feel the way his own anger’s filled the room and just wants it to dissipate like a stormcloud. His shoulders drop and he shakes his head. “I’m sorry,” he mutters. He remembers one of the last conversations he’d had with his father. His father, protective and proud, trying to tell him that the Republic was where Poe belonged and Poe fighting back, knowing full-well that his father was only trying to do what would keep him safe. 

Opposite him, he sees Luke shake his head slightly, ready to say that it’s alright, but Poe knows it isn’t, so he says it again, this time more sincerely: “I’m sorry.” And there’s suddenly nothing Poe wants more than to be back on Yavin IV, a kid again, before flying and before resistance. 

When Poe looks up, Luke looks so sympathetic. He’s quiet, like he usually is, but Poe can feel his compassion more than he’d ever been able to. And maybe Luke’s choosing it to be that way. 

“Let’s try something new,” Luke says, softly and reassuring. 

And Poe feels a sort of relief wash over him that he hasn’t felt in a very long time. 

 

\--

 

Luke calls it wall-building and it seems to go against everything Poe has been taught since he was a kid. His parents had always brought him up to be open and caring; building walls between you and the people around you had always had a sort of negative connotation. And Poe doesn’t like for there to be walls. He  _ likes _ being open. 

But he’s pretty good at it. At least, that’s what he gets from the short nods of approval he sees from Luke across the table. 

There are so many things that the mind is capable of; Poe hadn’t really given it enough credit before. With a little help from the Force, he knows, based on history, that it can become nearly unstoppable. He practises, and he knows that these “walls” are a pretty abstract concept, but he swears he can actually feel them in there, getting stronger every time he builds them. 

Luke (gently, of course, he doesn’t know how to do things any other way) offers to go inside his mind and pry at them. To really test just how strong they are. The idea of having somebody else in his head makes Poe sick, but he trusts Luke. He trust him not to move too quickly and to get out at the first sign of panic. So he nods. 

“Okay,” he stammers. “So what do I do?”

“The same that you’ve been doing,” Luke answers. His voice is soft and laden with sympathy. “Pretend I’m not here.”

Poe huffs out a laugh, but he closes his eyes anyway. Before he does, he sees Luke smile at him reassuringly. He closes his eyes and lets those walls build, almost feels them doing so, brick by brick, slowly, but stronger than he’d been anticipating. And he does sorta forget that Luke’s sitting across from him, forgets all about the anxious idea that someone’s gonna go through his thoughts. 

But then he feels something new. He’s so lost in the process that he’s actually a little startled by it. It starts off as a sort of itching feeling; a prodding in places he didn’t think he’d feel. When he realizes it’s Luke, he sits up a little straighter, and focuses on keeping those bricks strong. Luke, still gentle as ever, but so much more powerful, can tear through these walls so easily. Poe can feel just how much he’s holding back. It’s pathetic, really. How little he’s trying. 

And Ren will never let him off this easy. 

And that thought makes his chest tighten right up. All this work surmounting to nothing when Ren’s actually in front of him because he’ll find this too easy, he’ll probably even find it  _ fun _ . And that’s enough to make Poe feel sick. 

He opens his eyes and mutters: “Stop.”

And Luke stops. He allows Poe a moment of recovery, then leans forward. “Poe,” he starts.

“I’m alright,” Poe answers for him, not even wanting to hear the question. “I’m alright,” he repeats, though he’s not really sure who he’s trying to convince. 

He looks up at Luke, a little embarrassed, and Luke’s watching him, carefully and protectively. He smiles and nods. “I think we stop there.”

And Poe nods back, sure of nothing except that he never wants to do that again. 

 

\--

 

Poe hates that feeling: the feeling of waking up in a place you don’t recognize as your own bed. He remembers staying with friends from school on Yavin and waking up in the middle of the night in a strange home, not remembering that he hadn’t been at home with his Dad when he’d fallen asleep. He’s feeling that way now. 

He remembers falling asleep, Rey and Finn up on his bed (it’s their turn after all) and him on the floor. And sure, wherever he is now is just as uncomfortable of the barracks floor, but it isn’t the same. He opens his eyes and recognizes Ren’s ship almost instantly. He’s been here too often. 

“Shit,” he mutters through a sigh.

He thinks of Luke, of his training, and of Ren, dreading the moment that he walks through the door, and knowing full-well that it’s happening very soon. He closes his eyes and builds those walls in his mind. He focuses on building them strong. He misses the whoosh of the automatic door as it slides open and shut and then:

“What are you doing?”

Poe swallows hard. That’s Ren. He closes his eyes tighter and tries to keep everything unimportant out of his head. He hears Ren’s boots scuff the floor as he steps closer. 

“What are you doing?” He asks again. There’s less shock and confusion in his voice this time around. He’s not so much asking for an answer, but literally extracting it himself. 

Poe opens his mouth, goes to outline all of his training with Luke, before he realizes that that’s the answer Ren’s looking for. He clenches his jaw, takes a deep breath, and says nothing at all. He doesn’t think he’s capable of lying to Ren yet, but for now, he can keep things to himself. Who knows for how much longer. 

“You’ve outdone yourself,” Ren says. His voice sounds further off and when Poe opens his eyes, he sees that Kylo’s stepped away from him. He’s got his back to Poe, his hands clasped behind his back. He doesn’t look very worried and Poe tries to not let that deflate him. 

“Well,” Poe starts, hoping that Ren will keep his distance. “I try.”

“Very hard,” Ren says, glancing over his shoulder at Poe. He’s smirking and Poe knows he’d been right to think that Kylo Ren wouldn’t be put off by this fight getting a little harder, he’d actually  _ like _ it. “Who’s teaching you?” And that’s just a question. They’re actually just having a conversation. And that kinda pisses Poe off. He’d rather just get this over with. 

“Don’t you already know the answer to that?” He spits out. 

“I do,” Ren says. “Luke Skywalker.” His voice is venomous. “And it’s naive to think he can help you beat me.”

“I don’t know,” Poe starts, leaning back against the chair he’s strapped to. “If I had to pick a guy to take on the dark side, he’d be pretty close to the top of my list.” Ren raises his eyebrows, daring him to continue. “If he can beat Darth Vader…” Ren’s insolence fills the room around them. He steps closer. “He can beat _ you _ .”

Ren sends a wave of pain through him. Poe closes his eyes, but can hear Ren come even closer. “He’s not fighting me,” he hisses. He’s close enough that he doesn’t have to do much more than whisper. “You are.” The pain gets suddenly more intense when he feels Ren’s hand grasp onto his forearm. “And  _ you _ have no hope.”

Then Poe feels more hands. One on his shoulder and another gripping his hand tightly. They don’t belong to Ren, but Poe doesn’t know who they could be. Stormtroopers, probably; here to add injury to insult. He’s in too much pain to add any more thought to it. He’s in enough pain to be solely relying on his own adrenaline. The hand on his shoulder starts to shake him wildly. And the hand still doesn’t belong to Ren. This is a new threat. This is someone new and he just wants it to  _ stop. _

_ “Poe?” _ And that sounds like Finn, but no way Finn’s here. He saved him from Ren once, no way in Hell Poe would be lucky enough to have that happen again. 

_ “What happened?” _

And that’s distinctly  _ not _ Finn. So Poe heeds Luke’s training, and just like with Ren, he tries to block out whoever this new person is.  _ “What happened?”  _ And it feels just like an interrogation. He builds up those walls and tries to make them strong. Around him, he misses Ren’s room bleed into something a little more familiar: his own barracks. He misses the fact that he’s in his room with Finn and Rey, waking up from a dream, because it feels too damn much like he’s still strapped in a chair. 

“Poe, what happened?” Somewhere in the back of his mind, it hits him that that’s Rey’s voice, but he’s still stuck in the motion of building walls and making them strong. He keeps his mouth shut and feels her try to break them down. It’s different from the way Ren had done it: Rey’s indeliberate and messy, but it’s a violation all the same.

“Stop it,” he says through gritted teeth, but she keeps digging, keeps wanting to know what’s happened so that she can fix it, but this isn’t fixing anything. He feels panic bubbling up inside of him. The dream’s over; he shouldn’t know what it feels like to have someone in your head anymore. That was supposed to be a nightmare reserved to sleep. “Stop it,” he says again. This time with a little more feeling, and then: “Get out of my head!” It all comes blurting out before he can even stop it. 

And the sudden quiet in his room is jarring. 

He feels himself come back to reality, feels his chest heave up and down, still reeling, but grounded. In front of him, both Rey and Finn are stunned silent. Rey looks devastated and a little frightened, and Finn looks protective.  _ Of _ Rey, maybe. Ready to fight back if Poe ever swung out at her. And he could have; he hates to admit it, but he could have. And that isn’t him; he hates who he is when he feels trapped and terrified and he’s been that Poe Dameron for months. He studies Finn’s face and then Rey’s, who’s gotten over the initial shock of a raised voice in a small room, but she still looks unsure: unsure of what he might do next, and he feels so ashamed of himself that he just has to leave. 

He looks away from both Finn and Rey and runs his hand through his hair. Its soaked in sweat and it finally occurs to him that he probably looks like such a mess, but he knows that he can’t stay here a second longer, or that stone in his stomach will just keep growing and growing. 

“I…” His voice feels small. Rey and Finn hold their breaths. “I have to go.”

He starts to get up. Finn’s shocked still for a moment, but then he starts to get up too, makes to stop him, but Poe can’t let him do that. “It’s the middle of the night,” Finn tells him. 

“I know,” Poe says, pushing himself up off the mattress. Finn doesn’t touch him, doesn’t try to physically stop him, which Poe will probably have to thank him for later. “I’m sorry,” he says, as though it means anything. 

He’s outta the room before Finn can really fight back. He stuffs his hands into the pockets of his sweats and just walks. He lets himself head outside. It’s colder than he’d expected. He hugs his arms over his chest, but appreciates the feel of fresh air in his lungs. He looks up at the clear sky; the stars seem brighter than usual. It’s a beautiful night. Perfect for flying. At least he can still admit that, right?

He’s alone out on the tarmac and he’s not sure if he’d wanted to go out to his X-Wing all along or if he’d just done it on muscle-memory, but he’s standing underneath it, looking up, wishing for work, a mission that’s never coming. He lifts himself up the ladder, clambering inside. It’s been so long since he’s had to do this. It feels good to be back in the routine again. He sits down in the cockpit, leaving the shield up. He reaches out for the joystick and just feels everything click into place around him. He knows, that if he ever got sent up here, everything would be normal again. He’d be Poe Dameron, a pilot, a damn good one, but nothing more or less. 

“Hey!” That’s Finn. It’s random enough in the quiet early morning to startle Poe. He cranes his neck over the side of his X-Wing. Finn’s got his hands on his hips, his chin up towards him. He looks expectant, like his presence alone should be enough to get Poe to come down. But pride can be a pretty powerful thing. When Poe doesn’t answer quick enough, Finn continues: “You wanna come down from there?”

“Not really,” Poe mumbles back. If he’s difficult enough, Finn might just leave him alone. He hears Finn sigh and knows he’s doing a pretty good job. 

“Don’t make me come up there,” Finn says. 

If he didn’t hear Finn’s boots scuff along the tarmac, he wouldn’t have thought twice about the comment. But he knows Finn, knows him well enough to understand that idle threats are a foreign concept to him. He looks out over his X-Wing again and sure enough, Finn’s stepping towards the ladder, ready to pull himself up. 

“What are you doing?” Poe groans. “There’s no room up here.”

“You fly with a co-pilot, don’t you?” Finn asks, his voice muffled against his chest as he’s focused on climbing. 

“BB-8’s my co-pilot,” Poe grumbles back. “And they’re a little smaller than you are.”

“That’s offensive,” Finn mutters back. 

Poe looks back out of his fighter and Finn’s halfway up the ladder. Rolling his eyes, Poe starts to pull himself out of the chair. “Okay, just stop,” he mutters. Finn does; he pauses and looks up, waiting for Poe to do something more. Poe takes a deep breath, a heavy sigh and says: “I’m coming down.”

Finn smiles wide and hops down off the ladder. Grumbling, Poe throws his legs over the side of the X-Wing, until his feet find the first rung of the ladder. Finn’s right at the bottom when he gets down; when he hops off the last rung and turns, he and Finn are almost chest-to-chest. “Happy?” Poe huffs out and Finn just looks so damn smug that it almost makes Poe want to grin right back. 

“A little,” Finn says, shrugging. “Sure.”

Poe rolls his eyes and side-steps Finn. He doesn’t really have a plan about where he’s gonna go. His room’s certainly out of the question. But whether he had a plan or not doesn’t really matter when Finn side-steps with him. He’s still keeping a bit of distance between them. It makes Poe feel like he might break. 

“What?” Poe asks, when Finn doesn’t say anything. 

“You should probably just talk to me,” Finn tells him and then shrugs, as though this can’t be helped: “It’s the only way outta this one.”

Poe sighs. The last thing he wants to do is  _ talk _ . “Look,” he says. “I’m sorry. I freaked out back there.” 

“Whatever she did,” Finn says. “She didn’t mean it.”

Poe sighs, closes his eyes, and starts to nod. “I know,” he says, and he does. He’s not saying it to make anybody feel better. “It’s just… She’s stronger than she thinks she is.”

Finn’s nodding along with him. “She’s working on it.”

 

\--

 

Poe keeps to himself for most of the day; keeps away from both Rey and Finn. It isn't until dinner time that he actually has to actively avoid them. But they're in the mess hall, same as him, hungry for anything the base cooks will give them. He's scanning the faces for Jessika, but finds Rey instead. He and Rey catch each other’s eyes and he feels so embarrassed, embarrassed of his outburst that morning and of how he’s reacted to it, so he turns on his heel. He’s been running away from things for so long that he almost forgets how to take things head-on anymore. It’s cowardly and immature and he can just picture how his parents would disapprove. They’d brought him up better than this.

But he goes anyway. Walks until his hand meets the door to his own barracks and steps inside. He doesn’t feels safe until he’s got the door closed behind him. He sets his tray of food down on the desk opposite his bed. Suddenly, he’s lost his appetite. Instead, he picks up a ragged copy of  _ A Brief History of Endor _ and drops himself down on his bed. He sidles up so that his back is propped up against the wall, with his knees pulled up to his chest. He opens the book up to a random page. He reads and is overwhelmed by just how dull it is, but he’s willing to do just about anything to keep his mind off things.

A knock on the door makes him jump. It also makes him realize that he’s been reading and re-reading the same sentence over and over, not taking any of it in. He feels his heart jump into his throat.

“Poe?” It’s Rey, prompted to say something because of the way that his mouth has somehow been wired shut.

She sounds earnest and sincere and Poe knows he can’t keep running away from this, but also almost obliges the instant instinct to hold his breath and keep as quiet as possible so she’ll think the room is empty.

So, instead, he says: “Yeah?” as though he hadn’t just pulled a pretty large social blunder by hightailing it out of the mess hall.

She pauses and then asks: “Can I come in?”

And that prompts Poe to stand, chastising himself that he’d been fully prepared to have a conversation with her through an inch-thick metal door between them. He opens the door and there she is, brave enough to actually deal with emotional shit, and Poe wishes he was more like her.

“Yeah,” he says. “It’s your room too.”

He steps to the side, hoping that’ll be enough of an invitation. It is, but she still looks a little uncomfortable as she steps through the threshold. She looks over the room, her eyes immediately falling to the untouched tray of food on his desk, before she turns back towards him.

“You’re not eating?” she asks.

Poe swallows hard and starts to shake his head. “Not hungry.” She nods, hating the fact that she’s the reason why. And Poe hates that he’s made her feel that way. His apology comes tumbling out of his mouth before he’s really processed what he wants to apologize for.

“I’m sorry,” he blurts out. She blinks at him, a little startled. “For um…” He pauses. This is as far as his brain had gotten.  _ For what? What are you sorry for? _ “For this morning,” he decides on. “I shouldn’t have just left.”

“You don’t have to apologize,” she says, almost immediately, and she means it so much. “I get it.”

And Poe suddenly remembers that she actually does. She knows exactly how it feels to have Ren inside your head. He remembers Finn tripping over his words, desperately trying to get Poe to help him get Rey back from Kylo Ren. He remembers feeling a motivating rage consume him, knowing full-well that she was being given the exact same treatment he’d been when he was taken aboard that ship. He remembers picturing Rey in that chair and flying his X-Wing with a newfound fervour.

And for the first time, he wonders if Rey had, all along, been wanting to talk to him about it. Beyond Finn, they were the only known people to get off of a First Order ship alive. And he hates that this is the first time this thought has struck him. All along, where the hell had his compassion been?

“I know you do,” he says, trying to make his apology clear in every word.

She sits down on the bed and he sits down next to her, feeling the need to be close to someone who knows exactly how this recovery feels. She looks up at him and smiles meekly, but Poe knows that they’re about to dive deep into a pretty heavy conversation. And maybe he actually wants to be here: terrified, but about to take that leap of faith into a territory he’s tip-toeing around for months. 

“He makes you feel so weak sometimes,” she starts. She uses ‘he’ to refer to Kylo, same as Poe, not wanting to actually speak his name. Poe gulps back the urge to back out of this entirely. He shuffles a little closer to her. “You forget how strong he is.” She pauses. Poe can see her work through every word she’s saying. She meets his eyes, swallows defiantly and says: “You’re not weak. And neither am I.”

Poe’s stomach ties into a knot. He purses his lips together and swallows hard, fighting against his own emotion with everything he’s got. He nods, because he knows he’s supposed to. “You’re not,” he manages. “You fought back.”

“And you don’t think you did?” She asks quickly, fiercely protective of her new-found friends. “That you still are?”

“It’s not the same,” he mumbles. 

“It is,” she insists. 

“I’ve got no chance in hell,” Poe blurts back. His voice breaks so he finds himself laughing detrimentally. He looks away from Rey, can’t stand to watch the way his lack of confidence hits her hard. He scratches the back of his neck and knows he needs to backtrack. “I wanted to fight back,” he says, nodding at the memory of himself really back in that chair, flesh-and-blood, for the very first time. He remembers promising resolve and bravery. “But the second he walked in, it was like…” He searches his mind for the best way to put this. He settles on: “Like I brought a knife to a blaster fight.” Rey swallows, but keeps quiet, wanting him to go on. “You get those odds and no way you’re walking outta there.”

“But you did,” she says. 

Poe snorts. He remembers spiralling over Jakku, waking in the scorching desert, alone and in pain, and wonders where he’s supposed to see victory in that. “Yeah, after I gave away Resistance secrets. And nearly got you and Finn killed.” And then more words just come tumbling out, words he hadn’t even really processed enough to realize how much he was about to mean them. “And--... And  _ Blue Squadron _ .” He hates how whenever he thinks of Blue Squadron, falling and burning over Corellia, he always imagine Muran, his captain back in the Republic. Those pilots in Blue Squadron, they were all somebody’s Muran. “I never got my redemption for that.”

Rey reaches out and takes his hand with both of hers.  “I haven’t known you for very long,” she says. “But you’re stronger now than I’ve ever seen you. And you have me and Finn. We’re here to help.” And Poe knows that she’s right. He knows he’s so lucky to have the support of so many loving people, but it still feels as though there’s something that he’s missing. “But if it’s redemption that you want, what do you think this is?”

And Poe thinks of what Luke had told him about his own ambition. He thinks of himself preparing for overnight change. All along, that was never going to be the case, but a slow upward climb isn’t the same as getting nowhere. Sometimes, a fight isn’t dramatic. Sometimes, a fight is a constant gruelling push through mundane moments. Sometimes, a fight is simply knowing that that fights exists and choosing to face it anyway. 


End file.
